The Red and Blue Home for Lost Fat Kids
by TyrannothesaurusRex
Summary: At sixteen, Grif has four things going for him: no parents, no curfew, no set plans, and absolutely no one who knows he's barely hanging on by the skin of his teeth. But when a group of highly inept space marines kidnaps him for undoubtedly nefarious if poorly explained reasons, Grif has to face facts: life can actually get worse. Especially when they all claim to know him.
1. Chapter 1

_RvB: Not mine. If it was, I would've used the Reds a whole lot more and Kimball a whole lot less. She was okay, she just wasn't one of my boys (or one of the girls that counts as one of my boys)._

 _Takes place somewhere near the end of the Chorus saga, after they meet Santa Claus. I'm pretending there was a time-gap in which the Feds and Rebels ran missions, explored more of the temples, and had one-off fights with Charon, before it ramped up to the final battle._

 _Eventually circles the drain into fanfic melodrama, but at its heart a team-fic about a bunch of guys who have almost certainly failed every sensitivity course in the known universe. Rated for language._

* * *

CHAPTER 1

Grif knew something was wrong the moment he woke up.

First off, he wasn't in the apartment. The room was, however, reminiscent of the hospital over on Kingston Ave, the one designed for the rich tourists that came through Oahu and ended up retiring here, except that it was utilitarian; no pictures of Hawaiian sunsets or hula girls performing on the beach. Second, he recognized none of the people in the room. If this _was_ a hospital that wasn't surprising – he didn't know anyone who worked in the medical field, so it would be weirder if he did recognize them – but there were a handful of brightly colored space marines lounging around, clearly not doctors, and didn't _that_ sort of thing just scream trouble. What the hell had he gotten himself into?

"Explain this to me again," a woman in teal armor said, tone tight.

"Well," a maroon colored soldier answered, voice strained and clearly pretending not to be, "it was Grif's turn."

"Pardon?" she said, in a voice that meant he'd better start clarifying. Yes, thought Grif, please do. No one had noticed that he'd woken up yet, but he openly watched the exchange rather than pretending he was still asleep. As much fun as that sounded, it wouldn't help him figure out what was going on.

"Uh," the maroon soldier went on, voice squeaking up half a pitch. The three other occupants of the room – aquamarine, pink, and blue, respectively – watched the interrogation with interest. "Well, it goes me and then Grif and then Grif and then Donut and then Grif and then me and then Grif and then Grif and then Grif and then Donut and then Grif. Since Grif tried out that last chamber we found, it was pretty clearly his turn."

The teal soldier was silent for a moment. "Okay, first off, I don't even want to know how you define 'taking turns'—" ("It makes sense when you realize that, besides every other turn," the pink soldier chimed in, "Grif also gets every second, third, fifth, and eighth turns.") "—but why would you test out alien technology – without studying it, as far as I can tell – by putting one of your own guys in it?"

The armor should have made it hard to read a person's body language, but Grif could actually see the maroon soldier swallow before answering. "Because Sarge tells us to?"

"Sarge," the woman retorted, "is currently being chewed out by Kimball. Why are _you_ that stupid?"

"It was the temple of healing!" the maroon soldier answered, tone somehow both guilty and defensive. "This one actually sounded really safe!"

"Yeah, nice," another voice broke in. As it did, a small figure of a soldier popped into existence on the teal lady's shoulder. Okay, what? "I can see why your team dynamics are so healthy."

"Oh hello," the blue soldier said suddenly, cutting off what promised to be an entertaining, if uninformative, argument. "Did Santa heal you?"

Grif realized, a second before everyone else did, that the blue soldier was talking to him. Before he could answer (answer him how, he wasn't sure; he didn't know anyone named Santa, unless you counted Santa Claus, and he seriously doubted that's who the guy meant), the maroon soldier somehow jumped into the space right next to his bed and the rest of the group shifted so that he was suddenly the center of attention in a very sloppy circle.

Well _this_ didn't seem promising.

"Hello," he said.

"How are you feeling?" the maroon soldier demanded. He seemed weirdly interested in the answer.

"Great," Grif answered, realizing the moment he said it that it was true. He actually did feel great. It was a little hot in the room, but he liked the fact that they weren't blasting the air conditioning on full. You don't like it hot, then stop moving to fucking Hawaii and complaining about the weather. "Should I be feeling differently?"

Instead of answering, the maroon soldier turned what had to be a triumphant look on the teal lady, who had moved up next to the other side of Grif's bed.

"You've been out for almost three hours," she said. "Dr. Grey couldn't figure out why."

"But clearly," the maroon soldier added before anyone else could say anything, "it was all a part of the healing thing. Totally normal. And now you feel great. So it was perfectly natural."

"Right," Grif said, staring at the little hologram soldier, still hanging out on a spot right above the woman's shoulder.

"Take a picture," it said. "What, do I have something on my nose?"

When he didn't answer (which was fine, the blue soldier answered for him with a shocked but somehow ecstatic, "I just realized you don't actually have a nose!"), the aquamarine guy asked, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," he said, not sure what they wanted from him. "Thanks," he added, thinking maybe politeness would help.

The maroon soldier sat down on the edge of the bed, and put a hand on his arm. "Grif?"

"Yeah," Grif repeated, shrugging out of his creepily gentle grip, and then figured screw it, better go for it. "Just one question: who the fuck are you?"

There was silence for a moment, and then the hologram swore.

"Well shit," the aquamarine soldier agreed, and the teal lady, ignoring the fact that the maroon soldier had frozen and the blue one was patting the pink one on the shoulder (who's "you mean you don't remember _me?_ " sounded both offended and plaintive), said, "I hate working with you people."

"Don't mind me," Grif said, "I'll just check myself out and go home."

And somehow it didn't surprise him when they wouldn't let him.

* * *

 _AN: Grif has long been my favorite character. In an attempt to explain why, I accidentally wrote 13,000 words of a still longer story. I'm only about half done, having written the beginning and the end with the middle guts of the narrative still only notes and curse words. I don't actually swear in my everyday life – or even in my writing, usually – but it's hard to capture the cadence of the way the reds and blues speak without it. I just sort of went for it, trusting to the fact that my mother will never know._


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

* * *

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Church said, which pretty well summed up the situation.

"Nope," Dr. Grey answered cheerfully, apparently unaware of his tone. "This is fascinating. You can actually see it in the first brain scan when you know what you're looking for, but it's much larger in this second one." She examined both with an intrigued air. "He pretty clearly has brain damage."

"No," Tucker said immediately. Expert in all things alien (except, you know, not really), he'd invited himself to the biweekly meeting of the what-the-fuck-did-we-do-this-time club, along with the rest of its currently active members. Carolina may have called the meeting to inform Kimball, Doyle, and Sarge of the consequences of the Red's "investigation" into the temple, but she'd just as quickly lost control of the guest list. Only Donut had stayed behind to keep Grif company. The rest of them stood in the hall outside of his room where they could see both in the plate glass, Donut talking animatedly and Grif listening with surprisingly open interest on his face. "If it's a Temple of Healing, then that's what it does. Aliens don't store bullshit technology."

"Maybe it's old," Simmons said. "No, fuck that, it is old, and something's wrong with it. He doesn't remember anything."

"That's not—" Carolina started, but Sarge cut her off with, "You mean I'm going to have to train him again? Hmm. Well, maybe he'll take to the Grifball course better this time."

"I seriously doubt that," Church said, stopping Doyle before he could ask what a Grifball course was. He'd actually seen Grif run it the first time, Sarge chasing him with a shotgun while Church watched through the scope of his sniper rifle, trying to figure out what the fuck they were up to.

"He can't have forgotten everything," Dr. Grey said, before Carolina could say it herself. Wash, sensing her rising temper, leaned against the wall with his arms crossed to try and convey calm. Either Carolina was starting to read his signals better or she'd finally figured out that this was just par for the course when you worked with the least professional soldiers in existence. Either way she visibly – and forcibly – relaxed. "He has amnesia. Very specific amnesia, and clearly intentional."

"See, the last time I had intentional amnesia," Caboose put in, "I only forgot my mom's birthday, but that was because she wouldn't let me ride in the cart at the grocery store and I was kind of mad at her."

"I told you," Tucker said, "it isn't cool for sixteen-year-olds to ride those things."

"Focus, people," Kimball cut in, ignoring Caboose's indignant, "But I had my driver's license! It should've been allowed!" (Though Doyle asked him quietly, "What kind of vehicle is that? I don't think I've ever seen one.") "What do you mean, 'intentional'?"

"There are no bleeds," Dr. Grey explained, giving Caboose only a glance as he explained the merits of grocery carts over golf ones to an interested Doyle. Wash, still leaning against the wall, would've thanked Doyle for distracting Caboose if he'd been sure the General had done it on purpose. "No tumors, no lesions, no bruising, no damage in a brain that's acting like it's been damaged. So the machine must've done it on purpose. I don't know how, but his synapses just aren't firing. They're still there, they're just…dark."

"I could've told you his synapses weren't firing," Sarge grumbled. "Been saying it for years!"

"So noted," Kimball said dryly. Carolina coughed and Wash shot her a look, wondering if she had actually just laughed.

Tucker gave up trying to translate Caboose's off-the-wall explanation of what golf was for Doyle (who was nodding and hmming as though Caboose hadn't lost him five sentences back) and started to say something, but Church blew past him. "So let's take him back to the Temple of Magically Induced Amnesia—"

"Temple of Three Hour Naps," Caboose put in, abruptly finished with his one-sided debate about putting techniques in sand versus water.

"—the Temple of Pain in the Ass Side Effects," Church amended, ignoring Caboose who seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding in approval, "stuff him back in the machine, and reverse whatever the hell it did to him."

"No," Kimball said before anyone else could weigh in. "We've got Charon troop movements all over the area. It'll have to be a last resort. We were pushing our luck already. You know how fast they respond to any missions that they spot."

"They do stay pretty well on our ass," Tucker agreed.

Without acknowledging this statement, the rebel commander folded her arms, focus zeroing in on Sarge. "It would've helped if someone hadn't broadcast 'Suck it Blue' on all channels from the Temple compound."

"Heh," Sarge laughed. "Sometimes you just get a hankerin' for the good old days."

"Not even a little," Wash put in under his breath, still leaning nonchalantly against the wall.

"No, see," Simmons explained to the room at large, tone halfway between that air he always adopted when he had what he thought was an interesting idea and the one he had when he knew he'd blown it, "I had this theory that the temples could be used to link a broadband announcement on—"

"Yeah, don't care," Church cut him off. "The fact that Grif doesn't remember anything is kind of the issue here."

"We don't know _what_ he remembers," Carolina reminded him. " _Someone_ started panicking before we could ask him."

"That wasn't panic!" Simmons objected, voice fully back up to that pitch that meant he felt guilty and didn't want anyone to know. "I thought Donut was going to cry and someone needed to take charge of the situation before any of us had to see that. _Again_."

"By yelling out every sitcom remedy for amnesia that you could think of," Tucker clarified.

"Hey, hitting him on the head was a perfectly reasonable idea."

Sarge nodded brusquely. "Not quite step one in any given plan, but an adequate substitute."

"And sitting around just waiting for his memories to come back?" Tucker asked.

"Okay, shut up," Church said before Simmons could counter this attack. "Since the Temple is currently out, what do we do? _Doctor_ ," he added pointedly.

"Oh!" she said. "Well. Sit around and, uh, you know…wait for his memories to come back."

There was silence for about half a second and then Tucker said, "Great," over Simmons' smug: " _Legal Custodians,_ episode 31." "Anything else?"

"Well," Dr. Grey added, tapping her helmet on the chin area thoughtfully, "telling him about some of your memories together might help."

" _Frenemies_ , episode 96," Simmons said in an aside to Doyle, who happened to be looking at him.

"Recap episodes don't count," Tucker informed him, annoyed. "So who wants to volunteer to summarize our insane no-one-who-hears-this-shit-actually-believes-it-(unless-they're-a-rebel-fighter-from-Chorus) adventures to him? No offense, Kimball."

"None taken," she said in a voice that meant otherwise.

Carolina hid her amusement pretty well, but Wash could hear it creep into her voice. "I think we need a slightly more adept hand than usual when explaining who he is and what happened to him. The rest can come later. Wash?"

Wash pushed himself off the wall. "Got it."

"Oh, I'll take a piece of that action," Church said, jumping ship from Carolina's armor to Wash's. Wash would've objected, knowing Church's brand of diplomacy, but he sighed silently and gave up the lost cause rather than wasting his breath. Carolina shrugged at him, so no help there, as Kimball started answering Sarge's leading questions about whether he could commandeer the training room for a new obstacle course, mostly by repeating "no" and "I said _NO_ " in a louder and louder voice.

Wash made his way to the door as the meeting dissolved into the usual bedlam, one side of the room wondering exactly how hard you'd have to hit someone to make their memories come back (not to mention, Simmons could be heard to add, how you'd go about testing that in a scientifically consistent manner) while Tucker stuck an oar into Kimball and Sarge's "discussion" with the suggestion that commandeering the mess hall might be a better venue in this case. Caboose, standing in the middle of the room, had clearly lost the thread of both arguments and was soliloquizing to himself that, while hitting the mess hall as hard as you could might be fun, it probably wouldn't produce anything better to eat.

Church snorted and gestured to the door, as though Wash needed encouragement to make good their escape. "After you, buddy."

* * *

Moron, Grif decided.

The pink soldier – Donut, he corrected himself; stupid name, and though he'd suspected at first that it was made up he was starting to wonder – had finally gotten to his second year of elementary school. He'd been giving Grif what he called the brief rundown on double-o-Donut's life history. Grif wondered how much longer the long version could possibly be, and knew he'd never ask. Besides, it wasn't likely to tell him anything that he didn't already know: namely, that the guy had all the subtlety – and color sense – of a Super Mario heroine.

A soldier Grif had never seen before entered the room without knocking, the hologram on his shoulder. He wore grey and yellow striped armor, and Grif knew immediately that he was a real soldier. Trouble, on an entirely different class level than any of the others he'd met so far. Well, besides the woman. But he got a feeling she was leadership, and leadership tended to delegate, a magical word that meant they looked like they were doing something by sending someone else to do it. She'd probably delegated this soldier into…well, whatever it was they were up to.

 _Play it cool,_ he thought _. Play it cool and just figure out why you're here._

"Hey," the soldier said, cutting off pretty-in-pink. So that was one good thing that had happened today. Maybe by the end of the day he'd be able to count them on _two_ fingers. "How are you feeling?"

Grif didn't have a clue why everyone was so interested in how he was feeling, but he answered without letting his irritation show. "Still great. When are you going to let me out of here?"

Instead of answering his question – and didn't that get the warning bells, already chiming quietly, clanging in Grif's head; he knew when to start measuring the distance to the door – the grey soldier asked him, "What do you remember?"

It was the kind of uselessly open-ended question that Grif liked (easy to answer without actually saying anything), except that he'd been wondering the same thing. He knew that he had three study halls this semester even though school policy only allowed two, that he still needed to reschedule his after school shift on Friday so that he could meet with Mr. King, and that if he didn't get out of here soon Kai was going to shack up with some stranger off the street and miss school for the next three days, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what day of the week it was or what he'd been doing before he woke up in a hospital filled with a rainbow's worth of space marines.

He didn't particularly want to go into that though, so he said, "One second I'm minding my own business, the next I'm waking up here. So not a lot."

"That doesn't seem promising," the grey soldier agreed pleasantly, and Grif nearly cheered. A real soldier, maybe, but a nice guy. And Nice Guys could be manipulated. "Do you know your name?"

Grif started looking around the room, noting windows and doors and the way people moved from room to room with open curiosity. In movies people looked around furtively when they didn't want anyone to notice them, but in real life loitering with a suspicious look on your face got the cops called on your ass. Nobody questioned natural curiosity. "Dexter Grif," he said.

"I'm Agent Washington," the grey soldier replied, offering him a hand, and yep, that grip meant Grif wouldn't be making a move with him in the room. Not now, not ever. "But you can call me Wash." Yeah, Grif would go ahead and call him something he didn't think was made up. "This is Church," Nice Guy continued, pointing to the hologram on his shoulder, "and you've met Donut."

Yeah, double-o-Donut. Grif hated to break it to Mario, but he was pretty sure this princess was in another castle. Princess Peach waved and said, "We're old friends."

"Yeah, I got that," Grif said to the pink soldier. He would call him Donut as soon as he believed it was his real name. "You guys clearly know each other."

"No, no." The pink soldier used one hand to wave between the two of them like he was going to wingardium leviosa them closer together (year one of double-o-Donut's school career had been what Grif suspected was a badly garbled Harry Potter fanfiction), and placed the other on his hip. "I mean you and I are old friends. And so is Wash. And Church."

Grif raised his eyebrows. "The hologram."

"The AI," it said, tone annoyed. "So here's the thing: you're shit out of luck."

"What Church _means_ ," Nice Guy said, a warning note in his voice that was probably meant for the asshole program, "is that you're our friend, and we're going to do everything we can to help you."

Grif was pretty sure those two sentences didn't mean the same thing, but he didn't argue or let the worry that had started to gather in his stomach show on his face. People only ever had as much power over you as you gave them. "If we're friends, why don't I remember you?"

"Well," the grey soldier started, then hesitated. He seemed to be struggling to find the right words. Yeah, not suspicious at all. "You ended up accidentally—"

"Purposefully," said the hologram.

"It _was_ your turn," added the pink soldier.

"—going into this healing chamber—"

"Alien temple," the hologram clarified.

"A _cool_ Alien Temple," came the insistently cheerful amendment.

"—and," the grey soldier bit out, which meant that he wasn't as immune to the computer program or the fruitcake as he'd been pretending, "when you came out—"

"Not that kind of 'came out'," Princess Peach said in a stage whisper to Grif, tone helpful. "He means you walked out – well, not actually 'walked,' Simmons and I—"

"Enough, _both_ of you," Nice Guy snapped. "Let me do this."

"Yeah, you suck at this," the hologram told him, then turned to Grif. "Okay, so here's the rundown: you're a soldier, formerly on the Red team, which used to be part of a simulation program that ran mock battles to help train highly skilled operatives like Wash, but now we do a lot of other shit that I don't have time to get into right now. So this morning you and your fuckup teammates went on a field trip to an alien temple and you ended up on the raw-end of some of the dumb shit you guys always get up to, which erased half your life."

"Half your memories," the grey soldier amended, tone pained. "And we don't think they're erased. They're just not accessible. So they should come back to you. Hopefully on their own."

Grif considered that load of horse shit and said, "Right."

"No, really," Nice Guy said earnestly, like that made it more convincing.

He gave them all a thumbs-up. "Yeah. Right."

"Fuck it," the hologram said before the grey guy could try again, "I don't care if you believe us. You'll remember eventually."

"Don't worry," the pink soldier added, as earnestly helpful as before, "the next two turns are yours for any of Sarge's experiments, but then Simmons is up again."

The only thing that Grif had understood in that entire explanation had been the word "experiment." Was that what this was? Was this some sort of military group that ran illegal experiments on unsuspecting citizens? A long time ago his mom had told him that the child catchers came out after dark to kidnap wayward children and sell them to underground research facilities. Even then he'd known it was a lie, designed to get him home before sunset, but, like the bat story, it had stuck with him.

Still, illegal experimentation sounded like the premise for a made-for-TV move, which made him suspicious on principle. "That sounds great. So I'm going to go ahead and head home now." Sudden inspiration hit him. "Mom's going to start wondering where I am."

The grey soldier regarded him for a second, then asked, "How old are you?"

For a moment Grif almost lied, but it was too risky. If they knew who he was – and they kept using his name, so they probably did – a lie would put them on their guard. If they didn't, finding out he was underage might make them change their mind about whatever it was they were doing. "Sixteen."

"Oh," Nice Guy said. Then: "You're younger than I thought."

"I've always been big for my age," he explained.

The hologram snorted. "Is that what you tell yourself?"

 _You asshat_ , he thought. But he had been called much worse and hadn't flinched then, so he adopted a wide-eyed stare of surprise and answered the hologram without a hint of sarcasm in his tone. "Oh gee, are you saying I'm fat? Gosh, I wish someone had told me."

"Wait a minute," the pink soldier said, before the hologram could decide whether he was serious. "I thought your mom left right before you turned sixteen."

Grif's stomach dropped straight into his feet. They knew. Shit shit shit, they definitely knew who he was. And worse, they knew that Mom was gone. There were only two people in the world who knew that fact for certain, and a school full of morons who thought it was a rumor blown out of proportion (thank you very much, as that was his doing; too bad he'd never be able to gloat about it to anyone). But if these guys knew…what could they possibly want from him?

But Grif had a hell of a poker face so he smiled and tried the lie anyways. "Why does everyone think she left? She works afternoons and evenings, so we don't see her much, but she's home every day. So, sorry, but it matters if I come home or not." So suck on that, he didn't add.

The hologram, who seemed to be enjoying himself, folded his arms. "Prostitution is an old and respected career, I know, but I don't think what your mother does at the circus qualifies." Holy _shit,_ these guys were assholes. "And nice try. Sister already told us the truth."

Grif's jaw, tight from holding on to his temper, abruptly unclenched as his stomach leapt back into his guts and twisted. It was a fight to keep it off his face – a fight he nearly lost, if the grey soldier straightening suddenly wasn't a coincidence – but he won it, because he always did. "My sister's here too?"

"Like we need that headache," the hologram said, and for a second relief loosened the tight ball in Grif's stomach. "She's nowhere near here. Probably banging her way through the half of the army she hasn't given Chlamydia to yet."

The casual way the hologram said it frightened Grif down in a place that went deeper than his fear the night he had shoved Kai under the bed, squeezed in after her, and listened to one of Mom's boyfriends tear the place apart looking for whatever Mom had stolen from him. He hadn't thought anything could surpass that. It wasn't as if his sister hadn't been called a slut before. Or a whore, a hooker, street-corner jailbait, white trash and a piece of ass, many of those to his face and all of them by kids his age or near it. But the cavalier way an adult – a hologram, but an adult one, attached to a space marine that talked like a nice guy but held the weapon in his hands with competent indifference – could talk about passing a fourteen-year-old around the army sent Grif cold in a way that made it really fucking easy to turn on all his charm, smile in a way that suggested he didn't actually care, and say, "You're pimping her to your buddies?"

"Knock it off, Church," Nice Guy said. "Nobody's pimping anyone anywhere. She's fine."

So it was a threat then. "What do you want from me?" he asked, tone easy.

"Get this through your thick skull," the hologram said. " _Nothing_. Just hang tight, we'll get your memories back. I actually know a thing or two about that."

"And _I_ know a thing or two about what you can hang tight to in the meantime."

The sudden tonal change nearly gave Grif whiplash, the sassy way the pink soldier said it both cheerful and suggestive. Did he just…? Princess Peach continued giving him the thumbs up, so brightly that Grif could actually imagine the smile on his face, and he honestly had no idea what to think.

"Donut don't…don't worry about him," the grey soldier said with something that was almost a pained sigh in his voice. "Donut's just like that."

Grif wanted to believe him, but he wouldn't forget any time soon that the guy was playing good cop to a hologram that had suggested Kai was the afternoon special at club military. Instead he turned to the pink soldier directly, not particularly wanting but at least needing to know what he meant. "What exactly does _that_ mean?"

"Story time," he answered with aplomb. On the one hand, this was better than he'd suspected. "We haven't gotten to Double-o-Donut's fateful meetup with his faithful sidekick, Private Grif." On the other, it was kind of worse. "Oh! Though you're a captain now. But we'll get to that."

"A captain," Grif said skeptically, and the hologram just folded his arms in smug satisfaction and said, to Nice Guy, "I knew this was going to be a good show."

* * *

 _Couple of notes here: I know there's not a lot of precedence for Church commonly jumping from armor to armor, but I figure that it fits with his personality to do whatever he feels like whenever he feels like it. That and he's an insensitive prick and I wanted every chance I could take to prove exactly how insensitive, particularly playing off the backdrop of Wash trying, and failing, to be sympathetic. Someone explain to me why I love these characters._

 _Also: originally this fic was supposed to be written entirely from Grif's perspective. And then I wrote a line from the other point of view that made me snort milk. (Not only do I laugh at my own jokes, I laugh at my own jokes HARD.) I wanted to put it in so badly that this story is now officially twice as long as it needs to be._

 _Finally: I've gotten to the end of the first chunk of completed chapters. The next three are thoroughly planned out but mostly unwritten, so it'll take more time between uploads. It'll probably be a week or two between updates._


	3. Chapter 3

_For everybody that wanted an update, but especially for the people I promised this to earlier: have a stupidly long chapter. I could have broken it up, but that would've messed up the beat of the story. Enjoy!_

* * *

CHAPTER 3

Matthews was about five thousand times more thrilled about this than anybody had any right to be.

He was not Grif's first visitor, by any means. The Reds and Blues had been camped out for the better part of three hours (the Reds were under orders to jog his memory –though Sarge, taking the opportunity to dig through the Federal supply stores for spare retention units designed for robots and _not_ human beings, was nowhere to be seen – and Tucker and Caboose were here until Kimball or Wash figured out that they weren't helping so much as avoiding physical training, though Caboose kept asking when it was his turn to tell stories), and they were letting anyone who wanted to find out if the rumors were true come in and gawk. Word got around.

"You actually think you're sixteen years old?" the private demanded of Grif in a so-thrilled-I'm-about-to-pee-myself voice. "This is so great. I can't even tell you what this means to me."

Tucker, who felt that he knew more about alien technology than anybody and thus deserved the only comfortable chair in the room, leaned back to give Matthews a look that no one could actually see. "And what, _exactly_ , does this mean to you?" He didn't sound like he actually wanted to know.

"Second chance for a first impression!" he exclaimed. He nodded smartly at Donut's encouraging "I hear that!" and stuck out a hand with an enthusiastic, "Hello, Captain Grif, my name's Matthews and I'm your best soldier."

Grif's face said about everything it needed to: namely, that he loathed Matthews on instinct. He didn't take his hand. "Right," Grif said, turning away from him. "So when do I get to leave?"

Simmons sighed, a distinctly annoyed sound, but he didn't stop perusing the latest brain scan to answer him. "We told you, you're on a base that's nowhere near Earth so—"

"No, no," he interrupted, "I get that. I mean the hospital. When do I get to leave the hospital? I feel fine."

"Weellll…" Dr. Grey said, drawing out the word as she entered the room. She had the ScanCap in her hand, pieces of wire poking out of the inner membrane. She'd been trying to figure out a way to hook it up to the flat computer board Simmons was working on, writing a program that would trick the scanner into taking a more thorough look at Grif's neural pathways. "Your temperature has gone up another degree in the last hour. You're still within the normal range of variation, but I'm afraid it might be a side effect of your memory…" she struggled for a word, then picked, " _issues,_ and I want to keep an eye on it."

"Right," he said again, in a tone of voice that gave away nothing. If he was worried, you couldn't tell.

"Do you want to hear the story of how I saved my best friend's life?" Caboose asked, unable to keep it in any longer.

"Not now, Caboose," Tucker told him. "Nobody wants to find out how deeply your mental retardation has affected your memories."

"Didn't you hear what I said?" Matthews interjected, a little plaintively. "I'm the best soldier under your command."

Grif smiled at him, expression not exactly sincere but not exactly fake either. "I'll be sure to log that in my diary."

Caboose gave the private a pat on the back that had Matthews staggering under the blow. "I don't think he believes you. Maybe you should try again. Tell him you're best friends. That always works for me."

"You don't really understand what a first impression is, do you?" Tucker asked him.

For a second Matthews looked stymied (and not particularly encouraged by Caboose's "I do so! It means you get to hit him on the head as many times as you want until he remembers things the way you want him to! And if that doesn't work you reboot him into a new memory unit with the help of a mean lady!"), but then he perked up again. "That's okay! I can find out what he was like when he was sixteen, and when he doesn't think he's sixteen anymore I'll know all these things about him that will make him realize we have a lot in common."

"Oh good, even more information I never wanted to know," Tucker said. "You're actually more of a stalker than I thought."

"Hey!" Simmons protested, speaking on Matthews' behalf, but in a tone that was more sensitively defensive that it should have been. "Faking things in common is an effective strategy for getting along with your superiors."

"Way to project, Simmons."

"Here," Dr. Grey said, interrupting an argument that would've, under other circumstances, been a fascinating window into Simmons' psychological state. She hadn't tried cracking his father-figure issues yet, but she knew they were there. But it would have to wait for another time. She handed the ScanCap to him instead. "Try that."

Matthews gasped suddenly, hit with a brilliant idea. "Why don't you try showing Captain Grif that he's older? If he realizes that—"

Tucker put up a hand, cutting him off, though you could tell from his posture that he was pleased it had come up. "Donut?" he prompted.

"On it, my man," Donut said, pulling a rosy cerise hand mirror (they all knew the exact shade because Caboose, for some reason, had actually asked) from – well, no one knew where, and no one wanted to know. The pink soldier simultaneously patted Grif on the leg, ignored Tucker (trying to kick Caboose – who'd asked the aquamarine soldier what made him Donut's man – without standing up), and handed the mirror to Grif, who grimaced but took it. It probably didn't help any that the mirror had "I AM FABULOUS" written across the back in rhinestones.

"Well?" Tucker asked, after Grif had had a good, long look.

"Is this as fun for you as it is for me?" he asked as he dropped the mirror, which was not really an answer, but Tucker laughed.

"See that? He doesn't notice any difference."

Simmons, still feeling defensive, couldn't help but perk up as he picked up the explanation for Matthews. "Either he sees a teenager when he looks in the mirror, or he sees himself as he is but still somehow recognizes it as normal."

"I'm sorry," Tucker added, turning to Grif, "if your face is something you recognize as 'normal.'"

Donut gave him a consoling sigh. "We can't all age well."

"I have to admit," Dr. Grey interjected, "It worries me a little." She'd turned to Simmons, the only one in the room who appreciated anything of a scientific nature. "It shows a level of sophistication in the technology that's beyond…well, beyond me! Even more than I expected!"

"What does _that_ mean?" Palomo broke in unexpectedly, speaking from the door. He'd been by once already, but he was back for a longer stay; some of the other New Republic soldiers had been saying that Captain Grif would actually answer questions about his favorite classes in school and shit like that, which sounded hilarious. It was clear to him that he'd just walked into a juicy discussion. Hell yeah, he'd have something to tell the other lieutenants.

"Get the fuck out," Tucker said instantly. When he didn't move fast enough, the aquamarine soldier added, "You too, Matthews."

"But," the private started, " _I_ didn't—"

" _OUT._ "

Tucker waited for them to leave – Matthews whimpering and Palomo definitely whining, which didn't help their case in the slightest; Donut even gave them a disappointed headshake and pointed out to Caboose that you ought to take rejection as well as victory like a champion – before turning again to Simmons and Dr. Grey. "So apparently the sitcom bullshit isn't going to cut it? Well shit, who would've guessed that?"

"You did," Caboose supplied helpfully.

"Yeah, but—" Simmons tried.

"Oh that's right," Tucker smugly cut in. "I did."

Dr. Grey seemed to have missed the fact that Tucker was calling her methods into question (she hadn't; she just hadn't really expected them to work herself, so it was only fair), and started up again, still mostly to Simmons. "I just don't understand why changes in his memory would affect his temp—"

Before she could finish the thought, Sarge burst into the room with some sort of device in his hands, the veritable bull in the china shop. Everything just seemed to get louder when he was around. "How many volts would you say it takes to kill a full grown man?" he demanded of the Federal doctor.

"Oh, I know that one!" she said brightly, apparently unconcerned that she'd just been cut off mid-sentence. Or with the line of questioning. Which, quite honestly, she should have been. "It takes about 30 milliamps to cause respiratory paralysis, though it usually requires 50 to completely do you in!"

"Hmmm." The red sergeant seemed to consider that, re-examining his newest invention with just the slightest hint of disappointment to his air. He rallied in another second. "Well this is just a prototype. Einstein didn't make the electric chair work on the first try."

"Uh…" she started.

"Grif!" Sarge barked, as though someone wasn't on the verge of correcting him. Simmons shook his head at the doctor in an overly understanding way that would've made a less happy-go-lucky sociopath strangle him. Dr. Grey just gave him an understanding grin, which she somehow managed to convey with a tilt of her head. Sarge, unconcerned with either of them, flicked a switch on the box in his hands (if a microwave and an automatic soap dispenser had had a baby, this was clearly it) and brought it up into Grif's personal bubble. Immediately the room buzzed with electricity. "Are you feeling suicidal at all?"

Grif stared at him. "No," he finally said.

Sarge shook the box at him, bringing it closer to his face. To Grif's credit he only slightly shrunk back. "Are you sure?"

Grif didn't appear to think about it, but he did wait a second before answering. "Yes."

"Are you absolutely positive you don't feel like turning a knife on yourself?"

"Yes."

"A gun?"

"…no."

"Grenade?"

"Not particularly."

"A two-by-four?"

When that didn't get a response Sarge loomed further into his space, all focus and intensity. "You mean you _don't_ suddenly feel that your life is worthless because you're a fat slob who has no obvious purpose in life except to serve as cannon fodder in a fight far greater than your pathetic existence can fathom?"

Grif may not have looked impressed by this recap of his forgotten history, but Dr. Grey sounded pleased. "That's the sweetest way I've ever heard anyone describe our cause!"

Tucker snorted. "He means the war against the Blues." When she seemed uncertain what to say to that Tucker added, "If you let him go on long enough, you'll actually see a Red flag fluttering in the background and patriotic music will start playing," which didn't particularly clear up anything either.

Grif glanced at Tucker, but answered Sarge. "No."

"Dagnabbit," Sarge decided, dropping it to his side. "I was sure I was onto something!"

"What is it?" Dr. Grey asked, taking it – bravely, more than one person in the room thought – from him.

"It'll abnormalize the distribution of his GABA receptors, inhibit the production of dopamine, excite the serotonin system, or – well, maybe it inhibits the serotonin and excites the dopamine – doesn't matter!" They were pretty sure it did, but didn't bother correcting him. "It will make him more open to suggestions. I've set the dial to 'suicidal.'"

"Oh!" she said, distinct surprise in her voice. "That's…also more sophisticated that I would've expected." She seemed to realize something. "Why would you design it to encourage him to kill himself?"

"I've got this one," Donut jumped in, apparently feeling left out. "To fix Grif, of course!"

For a second Dr. Grey didn't seem to know what to say. "But if it worked, he'd die."

"Of course!" Sarge declared. "If it's not broke, don't fix it. If it _is_ broke, Grif is undoubtedly responsible in some way. And if Grif has broken something, take him out back and shoot him. Of course, even if it isn't broken, that's grounds for his execution too."

Dr. Grey said nothing for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was quietly but deeply thrilled. "I want to psychoanalyze your _entire_ _team_."

Tucker made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. "Ugh. Don't ruin it. I'd just figured out how all the women on base rank from uggo to bow-chicka-hit-that-oh, and I don't want to reshuffle my list."

"I _do_ have some deep-seated issues that could use a little airing," Donut told her.

Both Tucker and Simmons exchanged what had to be grimaces – they pretended they hadn't the second they realized they were on the same wavelength – but Sarge just ignored the pink soldier. "Maybe," he considered out loud, tone somewhere between optimistic I-can-build-anything and riled up Grif-has-obviously-somehow-ruined-this-for-me, "it's having a problem reading his blood type. I should recalibrate for all the fat cells clogging up his arteries. They're clearly hiding all the O antigens in his blood!"

"You set it to lock on a specific blood-type?" Dr. Grey asked. "Why would you—"

"O antigens?" Simmons cut in, apparently more bothered by that than why someone who wanted to mess with a person's brain chemistry would focus on blood-type as an identifying marker. He'd worked under Sarge too many years for that question. "But Type O means you _don't_ have either A or B anti—" he seemed to recognize that no one cared and finished, "—but Grif is AB positive."

There was silence for a long moment.

"I should've known you were into blood type personality theory," Tucker said. "Were you checking to see if you were compatible?"

"Stop reading Donut's magazines!" Simmons squawked, voice breaking in a way that had the pink soldier – in a very unwelcome gesture – patting his arm. He shrugged out of it like a cat dodging an unsolicited petting. "I know everybody's blood type! You're A negative and Caboose is B positive!"

"I _knew_ it," Caboose said, tone both triumphant and scandalized.

Tucker choked. "You know _Blue_ base's blood type? Fucking _why_?"

"Just in case!"

"In case of _what_?"

"So is _anyone_ here type O?" Donut broke in, in a vaguely curious way.

That stopped the argument. They all looked at the device, still humming – humming louder, actually, now that they were paying attention to it – and suddenly, from a back room somewhere in the medical ward, a voice went, "Oh my gosh, Steve? Steve, put down the scalpel!"

Dr. Grey looked at the contraption in her hands, looked up at the door leading into the nurse's station, then snapped it into two very neat little pieces. She dropped it on a medi-bed and disappeared down the hall, towards the cries of, "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Uh, sir?" Simmons said, turning to Sarge now that that crisis was averted (or at least being dealt with by someone else – you could hear moaning now and someone sobbing out "Blood! So much blood!" but it wasn't technically their problem; well, no, actually, it technically _was_ but Dr. Grey seemed more than qualified and now Simmons realized he was rambling in his head so he stopped). "You do know that all of our blood types are in the Red policy manual, right? You asked me to put them there."

"O for 'orange,'" Sarge explained, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Good _night,_ you guys are stupid," Tucker said. "You know somehow I always forget _how_ stupid? So what's your blood type?"

"S! Obviously! For 'Sarge.' Or perhaps 'Shotgun.'"

"Wouldn't that make your blood type 'Sh'?" Caboose asked. "That sounds very quiet and peaceful."

"Excellent point," Sarge complimented him. "Clearly that can't be it."

When Simmons spoke it was with something of a pained groan in his voice. "You also have blood type A negative, sir. Like Tucker."

"Now I know you're making this up. I'd never share blood type with a dirty blue."

"Maybe it's 'A' for 'Awesome,'" Donut suggested. "Or 'amazing.' Or possibly 'astounding!'" he continued enthusiastically, getting into it.

"Oh yeah, you're _astounding_ all right," Tucker agreed, half under his breath.

"Naturally!" Sarge agreed, apparently missing the sarcasm. "Simmons, bring the Dopacide Device with you—" the maroon soldier clearly understood fluent Sarge because he picked up the pieces of the dismantled machine without hesitating "—and follow me. We'll re-work it to run at a higher voltage. We may just be able to electrocute Grif and have it done with."

For a second Simmons hesitated, clearly torn between the brain scanner program he was still working on and the call of a superior officer, but habit won. He followed with only a slightly annoyed, "Yes, sir." They were gone two seconds later.

Caboose looked like he was about to say something but Grif – whose memory they were supposedly jogging and whom they'd forgotten about ten minutes ago – finally made himself heard. "So…supposedly I'm a teammate of yours."

"Yep!" Donut agreed.

"A friend, even."

Tucker made a definite "ehhing" noise and Caboose hissed his breath in through his teeth, like he was about to break some bad news to someone, but Donut said, just as chipper as before, "Righto!"

"Great. So your plan to 'fix me' is to force me to commit suicide using a machine created by a guy who thinks that blood-types are either color coordinated or descriptive character qualities." He smiled, a little flatly. "You can see why I might be confused."

Tucker snorted. "The best part of it is that this is not our worst plan to date."

"Weeellllll…" Donut interjected. He'd adopted the careful tone of someone who wanted to disagree with you but didn't really want to hurt your feelings about it. "It kind of is. Hang on," he said suddenly. "Yes, Agent Washington?"

Tucker and Caboose recognized the signs of Donut listening to someone on his radio. He had a hand half up to his helmet, an unconscious gesture that made it look like he was about to go into Jazz hands. Which, yes, he had done before. This time he just turned his head back to them to explain. "Wash wants me in the armory. Lopez is apparently refusing to hand out bullets and—" he suddenly gasped, went " _Ooh"_ like he'd just remembered something, then tapped the side of his helmet. "Sorry, Agent Washington. I can't. Red policy."

Tucker didn't bother asking what the Red policy in question was – he guaranteed it was stupid, so good luck with that, Wash – as Donut started fussing with the water jug next to Grif's bed. The pink soldier peered at it, posture indicative of suspicion, then said, "I'll get you some fresh water."

He sailed out, leaving the scent of lavender in his wake. They could hear him in the other room, humming to himself over the sound of a running faucet.

Caboose clapped his hands together once, body language telegraphing excitement. " _Now_ is it my turn to tell stories?"

Tucker decided the fight wasn't worth it. "Have at it."

Grif raised his eyebrows at the aquamarine soldier, a little incredulously. "You're really just going to keep me here, listening to Captain Oblivious—"

"Captain Caboose," Caboose cut in. "I think I've been clear on this point."

"—tell stories about my supposed life."

Tucker laughed at him, a mocking, derisive sound. "You think the stories are going to be about you?" He held out a cup to Donut as the pink soldier came back into the room. Obligingly, Donut took the cup and poured Tucker some water as the aquamarine soldier settled back into his chair, starting to work on some imaginary gunk in the finger joints of his gloves. "Besides, I don't know what you're complaining about. Hell," he said, flashing him a grin. "You've basically been ordered to stay in bed. I think that officially makes this your best day in the military."

"Of all time," Caboose assured him, and then continued with, "Once upon a time…"

* * *

Three hours. Three. Mind-numbing. Hours, and these assholes still wouldn't leave the room. Were they some sort of security detail, or just that fucking bored?

At the moment Grif wasn't sure if they were legitimately planning on killing him, or were honestly trying to drive him to do it himself. Between the dumb-ass stories and the suicide machine he was starting to suspect the latter. Also, if someone shoved that mirror in his face one more time he was going to cram it straight through their visor and down their throat. Hell if he knew why they were doing it. Grif suspected it was the space marine version of a fat-joke, which should've made it easy to shrug off. Unfortunately, everyone except for him seemed to get the joke. The last time he'd felt like this he'd been in second grade, listening to the school nurse explain over the sound of stifled giggling why you shouldn't come to school when you have lice. He hated to admit it, but it was actually starting to get to him.

Worse, they clearly knew a lot about him. They were casual about it – no in-your-face, wa-ha-ha, I-know-your-weaknesses type threats – but they'd drop crap like "don't get too excited, but I hear they're serving lasagna today in your honor" and "I _know_ you don't like yellow, but this is the _best_ flavor" and that was about fifty times more menacing. Grif could _see_ the hammer ( _we know you, down to your favorite food and your least favorite colors_ ) but there was no gauging when, or even how hard, it was going to fall.

What they didn't know, of course, was the fact that he was starting to get a handle on _them_.

"And that's how Church became little Church," the blue soldier finished. "And my best friend," he added quickly, almost under his breath.

"Yeah, you need to stop adding that to the end of all your stories," Pimp Daddy said from across the room.

Grif ignored the aquamarine soldier – it had taken only two "bow-chicka-bow-wows" to pick a name for him – and considered the dark blue soldier for a long moment. "Were you dropped on your head as a child?"

Pimp Daddy laughed. Princess Peach said, "Well _that_ wasn't very nice," but he could've saved his breath because Caboose gasped and asked, "How did you know?!"

Grif didn't actually have a better name for Caboose. You could drive a train through the gaping hole that was the logic center in his brain. So Caboose it was.

"I can read minds," he told the blue soldier. Grif hadn't even bothered trying to sound sincere, but the guy gasped again, said, "Did Santa do that to you _too_?" and put his hands over his helmet where his ears should've been.

"Oh, c'mon Grif," the aquamarine soldier said, legitimately irritated. "It's going to take me _weeks_ to convince him that you're not some kind of fucking wizard now."

"What am I thinking _right…this…second_?" Caboose asked in a stage whisper.

Since the blue soldier immediately starting muttering to himself, "I hate babies, I hate babies, I hate babies," Grif had a pretty good guess. "That you hate babies?" he hazarded.

Caboose gasped – only apparently he was extra surprised this time because he literally just said the word "GASP!" – and Pimp Daddy went, "You asshole."

"I could teach you Occlumency," Princess Peach offered over Pimp Daddy's, "Do you know how long it took me to convince him that Junior wasn't a vampire?"

Since Grif had no idea who Junior was, why the stupidest human being on earth might think that whoever he was was a vampire, or whether the second stupidest human being on earth literally believed he could teach someone fictional magic or was just humoring the _first_ stupidest human being on earth, this did not hold much meaning for him. Before Grif could ask – he wasn't going to, but if he'd wanted to he apparently wouldn't have had time anyways – Princess Peach put up a hand and went, "Oh, hold up guys."

It had taken a few interruptions for Grif to realize that the pink soldier was answering calls on his radio. For some reason he always felt compelled to stop the conversation, then retroactively explain the one-sided conversation like he thought it might be rude to leave the rest of them out of the loop. So far he'd interpreted five Spanish exchanges (whoever the Spanish guy was he was as much of a fruitcake as pinky here, if the translations were at all accurate) and explained, more than once, that Red policy was clear and that he couldn't leave at the moment.

"Sorry about that," Princess Peach said as soon as the conversation was apparently over. "Agent Washington is really starting to let the stress of his position get to him."

Grif had wondered, briefly, if the pink soldier might be the weak link he needed. The princess had an overpowering need to be _friends_ that should've made him easy to manipulate, but it didn't do Grif any good since he was also the most attentive out of all of his handlers. As soon as he decided that something was bad for Grif, he couldn't be budged. He was constantly asking him if he could get him a pillow or a drink of water, offering to tell him stories about their lives and all the magical times they'd had together, and he'd propositioned Grif three times now.

"Of course _we_ know how to handle the stress of a new position," Princess Peach went on, nudging Grif conspiratorially on the elbow. "I'm sure we'll have even more opportunities in the future."

Four. Make that an even four. Grif was afraid to be left alone in the room with him.

Caboose, hands still over the relative location of his ears, talk-shouted, to no one in particular, "Why am I imagining Agent Washingtub in a weird position now? _Are you doing this to me?_ "

Grif glanced at Pimp Daddy, trying to gauge whether he was there just to keep him from escaping or whether he'd also protect him from…other things, but the aquamarine soldier misinterpreted Grif's look and said, "Don't look at me. I'm not going to bow-chicka-bow-wow _that_ shit."

Not that Grif had really expected anything different. For some reason the colorful band of space marines preferred to pretend they were here to keep him company (the confab with the doctor had been a nice touch – _you have to stay because of a slightly elevated temperature_ , like that made _you're stuck in this bed until we say otherwise_ any easier to swallow; next time, try it when he didn't feel perfectly fine), but he was definitely cornered. The longer he sat here, the more certain he was that he was some kind of test subject. It would explain why they were such dicks to him but still kept asking how he was feeling, and why they'd scanned his brain about fifty times now. Not to mention that little scene with the suicide machine. How stupid did they think he was?

Mind you – if he was lucky – the answer was: pretty fucking stupid. When no one expected anything from you, they tended to drop their guard. All you had to do was wait for the right moment.

In the meantime Grif tried not to let Kai weigh on his mind. It had been hours, at the very least. If they'd been messing with his brain it was almost certainly more. The sooner he got out of here the better. _Keep a level head_ , he directed himself. _Just hurry up and wait._

"Let me get this straight," Nice Guy said suddenly and unexpectedly from the door. Grif wasn't the only person in the room to immediately snap to something that was almost attention, responding to his tone. The grey colored soldier stood in the doorway with his arms crossed and his hands gripping his biceps. "You can't leave the room because then the Blues would outnumber the Reds."

"Oh hey, Wash!" Princess Peach said, waving at him. Shoot, that was right. Nice Guy was Agent Washington. Grif had forgotten that. He waited for the hologram to pop into existence above his shoulder, then realized it must be somewhere else when it didn't. Good. Grif didn't think he had the mental fortitude to deal with that thing right now. It had clearly been programmed by a megalomaniac.

"Do I have that right?" the soldier asked in an extremely even tone that had Grif's _danger, Will Robinson, danger!_ spidey sense tingling.

"It's Red policy never to be outnumbered," the pink soldier confirmed in a _hello, duh_ voice that had Grif digging his fingernails into his palms. Didn't these idiots know when _not_ to push someone?

"So I've heard," Nice Guy said through grit teeth. "I just spoke with Sarge."

Pimp Daddy actually had the nerve to laugh. "You're not having a very good day, are you?"

"Donut, armory," Nice Guy snapped. "Tucker, OUT. I just saw your squad playing cards in the mess. If they're not running laps in five minutes, you will be running every single mile for them. I _KNOW_ ," he added loudly, cutting off the beginning of a protest, "that you're not doing anything useful."

The aquamarine soldier still managed to drag his feet on the way out the door, despite the grey soldier's terse, "I've already got the countdown running." Princess Peach stopped at the door.

"Are _you_ staying?" he asked. "Because I think you're still technically a blue so—"

"I've got better things to do with my time." Nice Guy abruptly registered what he'd said, amended it with a hasty, "Uh…no offense, Grif. Caboose?" He appeared to take in the blue soldier's posture, hands still clapped to the side of his helmet, then visibly decided that he didn't want to know. "Carry on." The grey soldier almost said something else, then gave up and followed the pink soldier out the door.

And quite suddenly Grif was alone with the stupidest human being on Earth. So just like that: opportunity.

Blue guy abruptly dropped his hands with an excited gasp. "I just realized I haven't introduced you to Freckles!"

If this way anything like the other animate-inanimate objects that populated the blue soldier's stories, Grif didn't want to know. Anyways, he had no idea how long it would just be the two of them – not long, if the rest of the day had been any indication – and he needed to take advantage while he had a shot. "I have to go to the bathroom."

"Oh," the blue soldier said. "That's nice. That doesn't really have anything to do with Freckles though."

Grif had to bite off a snort. "Yeah, sorry about that. The thing is, I don't know where it is."

"Well I do!" Caboose said with the sudden excitement of someone who had just recognized where the conversation was going. "I will take you there!"

Wait, back-track. Grif needed to get rid of his last handler. Not take him on a field trip. "I can go myself. Just point me in the right direction."

"I don't think I'm supposed to do that. The doctor lady said you had to stay."

"You could go…find it…for…" crap, he was really reaching now, "uh, for me."

"But I already know where it is."

No shit. "Yeah, but _I_ don't," he pointed out, trying not to grimace. The guy was stupid, but he couldn't be this—

"Oh!" the blue soldier said, cutting off Grif's thoughts. "That's right! In that case, I can go and find it for you."

For a second Grif said nothing, afraid that the next thing he might say would put the train of this guy's thoughts back on the track, but the blue soldier was still standing there expectantly, like he was waiting for something, so Grif tried a tentative, "Thank you?"

That did it. "I will be right back!" Caboose declared.

Grif took a long moment for himself, blinking after him and still more than a little dumbfounded that that had worked. Another second and he'd started to grin to himself. Fingers crossed that this wasn't some convoluted testing scenario, but he'd have to take that chance. He kicked the sheets off his legs, then stood in the center of the room for a second, trying to decide if he had time to search the room for clothes that didn't make him look like a mental ward escapee.

He was half buried in the cabinet next to the door, coming up empty (it was full of health packs, though he'd found a thermos that smelled like coffee), when he heard the sound of footsteps coming back to the room.

Shit. _SHIT._ Grif stood frozen, willing the person to walk on by, but he recognized the teal woman's voice saying, "I don't care how funny you think this is, I've only got a couple of minutes to spare," probably to that asshole hologram, and he knew he was out of time.

He had two choices. The first was to play it off. Examine something in the cabinet like he'd just gotten up to take a look. Just curious, nothing to see here. Oh, was I left alone in here by myself? I hadn't noticed! But you're going to make sure it doesn't happen again? Well that's a relief. By the way, can someone stop by the apartment and make sure my little sister hasn't accidentally killed herself in my absence? And let Dave know I'll be back at work as soon as the illegal experimentation has finished. Oh, and please tell Heather from CPS that we're going to need to reschedule that meeting with Mom two years from now, when I'm finally old enough to both admit that she's not coming and legally claim guardianship over my hopefully not dead sister. I'd appreciate it, thanks.

It wasn't much of a choice, really. Grif went for the second option.

* * *

"You _lost_ him?" Carolina demanded.

As one, the entire Reds and Blues turned to look at Caboose. Caboose, in turn, turned to look behind him. He seemed surprised that no one was there.

"We're looking at you, idiot," Tucker explained.

"I did not lose him," Caboose said in what could have passed – for him – as a haughty tone. "I went to find the bathroom. I think it is more likely that he lost himself."

"You know where the bathrooms are," Church reminded him, more than a little irritated. It was his job to make sure that the first thing Caboose learned when he came to a new base was where to find a toilet. It saved a lot of cleanup later.

"I know I know that, but _he_ didn't know I knew, so I had to go—" the blue soldier seemed to recognize that his argument wasn't winning him any points. He fell back on an old standby. "Tucker did it."

"Oh don't even."

It had taken Dr. Grey coming back into the room for Carolina and Church to realize that Grif hadn't just been taken somewhere for another brain scan, and it had taken another ten minutes – of time she couldn't spare, Carolina privately thought – to get everybody back here, just to figure out who last saw the orange soldier. Suffice to say, that had proved less than useful.

Tucker put his hand up. "I'd just like to point out that this is technically Wash's fault."

"Pardon?" the grey soldier demanded.

"You left him alone with _Caboose_."

"I officially don't care whose fault it was," Carolina said, cutting off Wash, who was clearly about to point at Sarge. Honestly, she was with Wash on this one, but she didn't feel like getting into it right now. "I suggest you _find him_."

Simmons had folded his arms, and was surveying the Blues more officiously than he ought to have been, under the circumstances. "You know, since this is technically Blue team's fault, you should be the ones to—"

"You're in charge of finding him," Carolina said, choosing to assign blame after all.

"But—!"

"Yeah, pretty sure this is your party, Reds," Church said, backing her up.

Sarge set his shotgun up on his shoulder. "I don't think I like your tone, Blue."

"Says the guy who shoved his own teammate—" there was a grumble and Church amended, "—inferior into unidentified alien technology. And then tried to blame _us_ for it."

Simmons sighed, recognizing a lost cause when he saw one. "Can you at least _try_ tracking him?" he asked of the AI.

"He's not wearing armor, so no. Even if he _was_ wearing armor, I'd have to know the tracking number on the model. And don't even ask about taking him over, I wouldn't do it even if I could. First he'd have to be on the radio – which, again, no armor – and second I don't actually want to remember what it feels like to wear the human equivalent of a garbage can."

"It's getting close to lunch time," Donut pointed out, turning the conversation back on a more useful track. "Maybe he went to find some food."

"Good idea," Tucker said. "Go search all the food stores in the city. Not that he knows where they are, but why the hell not?"

Donut tsked. "If you can't say something nice—"

"Okay, here's my call," Carolina cut back in. "Sarge, Donut, and Simmons, you're on the lookout. The rest of you will help when you're off duty."

There was a sudden round of protesting – the Reds seemed to believe it wasn't fair to make them do it by themselves, the Blues felt that it wasn't fair to ask them to do their normal duties and _then_ have to do more work afterwards when it wasn't even technically they're fault, which almost started another argument about what the word "technically" meant – but Carolina just said, "He's bound to show up eventually. I doubt you'll have to do much. He's going to stick out, wandering around in patient garb."

Simmons sighed. "Fine. Would you mind checking the security feed in here? We can at least figure out which direction he went."

"Are you talking to me?" Church asked. He snorted. "Because the answer's no. Check it yourself. This is your fuckup. Enjoy."

It almost started another quarrel, but Wash somehow got Sarge moving which seemed to shake the rest of them loose. They all left the room, taking off to different parts of the city depending on their jobs (Caboose, for some reason, still appeared to think he needed to find the bathroom, but no one bothered to redirect him; there was only so much Caboose handling you could take in a day), and Simmons made his way to the command center. All the city cameras fed back to the security panel in this room.

"Sir," one of the privates sitting at the desk said as the maroon soldier came up to him. Simmons nodded at him, not-so-secretly pleased whenever a subordinate showed him respect, and asked him to bring up the medical wing, room 3.

"Captain Grif's room?" the Federal soldier asked, already bringing up the feed. The private hesitated, then went for it. "He really thinks he's a kid?"

"Yes," Simmons answered, not really interested in getting into it at the moment. "Could you take the tape back? He left the room and we need to know where he went."

The private looked like he wanted to ask, but Simmons tone of general annoyance was apparently enough to stop him. He started rewinding the video, but he'd only gone about two minutes back when Simmons saw movement in the room that shouldn't have been there.

"Hold it," the maroon soldier ordered, stopping the rewind. He leaned slightly into the screen, eyebrows furrowed. The tape had made it back to the Red and Blue "discussion," but instead of going further back, to when Grif had presumably left the room, Simmons said, "Play it here."

He watched the scene unfold in silence – there was no sound, just video – wondering absently if they always bobbed their heads up and down when they talked. The meeting apparently came to a close because he watched first Sarge, followed by Wash, and then himself leave, and then the rest of them cleared out, heads still bobbing as they tossed what had to be insults at each other. Carolina, looking somehow both resigned and relieved, was the last to leave.

"Sir?" the private asked.

"I thought I saw…" he started, and then, right on cue, the cabinet to the left of the door popped open.

Grif crawled out of his hiding spot with all the grace you might expect from a guy his size. He took a second to push several health packs that had slid out with him back into the cabinet, then started scanning the room, possibly looking for something. In another second he'd spotted the camera. He grinned rather nastily, and flipped it off.

For the first time Simmons understood that Grif was sixteen years old.

"Oh _no_ ," he said and clicked into his radio. On the screen, Grif gave the camera a sloppy salute and left at something close to a run. "He was still in the room."

Before he could continue, Wash spoke up. "He was what?"

"I said he was still in the fucking room," Simmons repeated, starting to grasp the pain in the ass implications. "He was hiding in that cabinet right next to the door. The entire time. On purpose."

There was a short spell of silence, which Donut broke. "Technically, you didn't say 'he was still in the _fucking_ room,' you just said – you know, now that I think about it, I think I've been in that room before, but I don't think it's the same room that you—"

Church – probably just having accessed the video to watch it himself – laughed once, derisively, cutting off Donut like the pink soldier wasn't in the middle of describing some unknown room they would all need to avoid in the future. "Good luck with that," he said.

"Back to Plan A," Sarge decided, more pleased than annoyed. "Shoot on sight."

"Wait wait wait," Tucker demanded. "I missed something. So _what_?"

"So?" Simmons repeated incredulously. " _So_? So he hid in the room, listening to every word we said. About how to find him. And then he left the room. And now he's gone. Probably doing all of the things we said he shouldn't do if we wanted to find him."

When Tucker said nothing, Church filled in the blanks for him, voice as mockingly amused as he could make it. "He means that idiot thinks he's escaping."


	4. Chapter 4

_My apologies for the most un-fabulous delay. Remorse took longer than I thought to kick in. Also, in my defense I write original fiction, which has priority on my to-do list, and then I read through the Harry Potter series for the eighteenth time last week, which does NOT have priority but jumped up the list anyways. I'm back at last, with a long chapter to make up for it._

* * *

There were three major problems, as Grif saw it: 1.) The dick hologram, 2.) Nice Guy, and 3.) Dessert. Dessert was teal woman's official designation. She seemed liked the kind of competent badass who'd break his neck if she ever found out what he called her in his head, but she was also the only woman in this sausage-fest of a security detail, so Dessert it was. No offense, sweetheart.

Luckily, Dessert had done what Grif could count on authority to always do: delegate. She'd sent Nice Guy elsewhere, took the dick hologram with her, and left the red idiots in charge. Which made Deliverance head of operations.

Grif knew perfectly well that the over-the-top southern asshole would like to garrote him in a back alley ("Deliverance" for his obvious heritage; while Grif didn't think he would tell him to drop his pants and bend over – that seemed more like Princess Peach's department, only he'd suggest it in the nicest way possible which would make it worse somehow – he could imagine the red soldier hunting him through the halls, shouting at him to squeal like a buckshot pig), this did not actually worry him. O for orange, anyone?

Even better, both Princess Peach and the maroon guy (just "maroon guy" for now; for the life of him he couldn't come up with a name that fit the uptight prick) followed his lead. Maroon might've been trouble, but he clearly had a hard-on for authority, which overruled any actual smarts that he had.

Unfortunately, that hadn't been enough to stop him from checking the security tapes. So even with three major problems out, there were three urgent – if secondary – problems still in:

Time. As soon as Maroon watched the feed he'd know where Grif had gone. Which meant, idiots or not, the red guys could be swooping down on him any minute.

No maps, no signs, and no fucking clue where the locker-rooms or maintenance halls were. "Capital city of a planet nowhere near Earth" his ass, but still, this…facility, or whatever it was, was clearly bigger than he'd hoped.

Government Issue hospital gowns.

He was already getting looks from the few soldiers that he had passed, despite his easy and even pace; he stuck out even more than he thought he would. No one here wore anything other than armor. Grif had been hoping to get away with something a little more normal, considering what the dick hologram could do (the casual power of its programming legitimately scared him; he'd thought the thing was just a beefed up personal program until it had started talking tracking capabilities and armor takeovers), but apparently full body armor _was_ normal.

Basically, his choices sucked: keep walking, hoping that he would run into a locker-room filled with spare armor before the red guys caught up with him, crawl into a hidey-hole until the red guys caught up with him, or jump the next lone soldier he saw, hoping he was the sort of pansy that would go down under one unexpected blow. They were all stupid ideas, but if he didn't make a decision soon—

"Captain Grif! They let you out of the hospital?"

—then something like _that_ was going to happen.

Grif didn't freeze mid-step orimmediately take off running, but that was because he was a professional. You want to get away with something? Act like you aren't in the middle of getting away with it. Grif had sidestepped more trouble than you could shake a stick at just by putting on the _Nothing-To-See-Here_ show.

So instead of freezing like an idiot, Grif stopped walking and turned with all the casual indifference that he could muster. Which was more than most people. If they couldn't see your heart hammering in your throat, then it's like it wasn't happening.

Grif gave the marine (no solid colors, just tan with yellow stripes, which made him one of the guys that had randomly popped into his room to help keep up the bizarre it's-the-future-and-you're-a-captain-in-a-rebel-turned-resistance-fighter-army-on-a-planet-on-the-other-side-of-the-universe-and-you-believe-us-because-you-were-born-yesterday charade) a half smile that could've meant anything, keenly aware of the gun in the soldier's hands. Trying not to look at it (some kind of rifle, he thought; big, mean looking thing anyways), Grif ran through the list of nicknames he'd been using to keep them all straight. There was Cynic, Zen Lord, Headgear, Suck-up, Lapdog—wait a minute, backup, yellow stripes and a painfully hopeful demeanor…

"Captain Grif?" the solider asked, just a little too hesitantly. "You remember me, right? Your best soldier? Matthews?"

And Grif thought _hell yes: Suck-up._

"Matthews," he said, like he'd known his name all along. "Just who I was looking for."

Suck-up didn't look like he knew how to take this. On the one hand he looked almost excited, like Grif had just thrown him a doggy biscuit for being such a good boy, but on the other was the uncertainty clearly warring against it in his body language. Suck-up, definitely, but not entirely an idiot. The faster he talked, the better.

"I've gotten a little turned around," Grif explained. He glanced around – not surreptitiously, just like he was trying to get his bearings – but there weren't any quiet little side halls that he could steer Suck-up into in order to jump him and steal his armor. Anyways, Grif realized as he pretended not to see a flickering side-glance from another soldier passing business-like on their left, better to get out of the flow of traffic. "Could you show me where the bathroom is?"

"Oh!" Suck-up said with some relief. Grif watched the tan-and-yellow soldier relax, apparently deciding there wasn't anything wrong with that. "There's actually a bathroom back in Medical, but we're pretty close to another one at this point. I'll take you there first."

The implication being that he'd take Grif back to his room second. Grif just nodded and fell into step next to him, keeping the gun in his peripheral vision. "Thanks. This place is a maze. I don't know how you guys keep it all straight."

He'd been trying to backhand compliment him – suck-ups liked compliments, especially when they had to work through them – but he knew at once that it had been the wrong thing to say. The soldier slowed just the tiniest bit, probably not even aware that he'd let his hesitation show, before going back to his former pace. "So…you're feeling better, right? I mean, they wouldn't let you out otherwise, would they? Your memory's definitely coming back. Captain Grif. Sir."

Fine. If Suck-up wanted to stick with the script, let's stick with the script. "I remember _you_ ," Grif said. It wasn't even a lie. He remembered tan-and-yellow from his one visit. He'd been a pain the ass.

This immediately got Suck-up back on his side. His grip on his weapon, Grif noticed with great interest, slackened in response. "That's great! What else do you remember about me? See if any of these ring a bell: I'm on your team, you depend on me to fill out your paperwork, and I successfully stole those Ho Hos you asked for from the commissary last week – well, not entirely successfully, but I didn't actually go to the brig this time so—"

"This it?" Grif asked, cutting him off.

"Ah!" Suck-up said, suddenly noticing where he was. They'd walked right past the open entryway (if this _was_ the future, they were still using stickmen to mark the men's room) without him even noticing. It had that universal chlorine-over-sweaty-dudes smell to it that meant it was also a changing room, if the two rows of lockers to the left of the stalls hadn't already clued Grif in. "Time sure flies when you're spending time with the greatest Captain on Chorus!"

"And the greatest soldier," Grif said, getting the words past his throat with effort, but there were more important things than telling the pain in the ass to STFU at the moment. Not least of which was the fact that they were alone. And that Suck-up, his whole demeanor simultaneously relaxing and brightening as the conversation took an extremely pleasing direction, let go of his weapon with one hand entirely, the barrel pointing to the floor.

Now or never.

"Sir!" Suck-up cried. "That's the nicest—"

Grif grabbed the frame of the rifle, jerked it out of the soldier's loose grip, saw that the thing was now pointing straight at his stomach and, in his sudden panic, somehow turned it sideways, swung it around, and had it pointed at yellow-stripes in the space of half a second.

Holy shit, he thought, heart pounding. He'd gotten away with a lot in his life, but he'd never known he had the balls to do something like that.

Suck-up had both hands half-up, helmet tilted down to take in the gun now pointed at his own stomach, and Grif went ahead and imagined the gape-jawed look on his face. He settled the rifle into the crook of his shoulder, finding the most comfortable spot for it with an ease that surprised him. The yellow striped soldier watched the barrel move from his stomach up to his chest, hands unconsciously raising with it, and Grif – because he knew how to gloat like a boss – didn't as much as grin.

Instead, he gave Suck-up the calmest _shit happens_ look he had in his arsenal. "Armor please."

His hostage visibly swallowed. "Is this some kind of test?" he asked, voice breaking.

Grif liked to imagine that he would've come up with something truly witty to say to this, but before he could muster anything besides dumbfounded confusion, his run of luck hit a wall. A big, stupid, very blue wall.

"Oh good! You found the bathroom on your own. I was beginning to worry that you would not find it in time."

Blue guy had the look of someone greeting a long-lost acquaintance (hand half up like he couldn't decide if they were at the _wave hello_ level of friendship), for all the world oblivious to the scene in front of him. Grif stared at him, looked back at Suck-up, looked down at the gun in his hands, glanced over at the line of mirrors above the sinks to get an idea of what this looked like from an outside perspective (like a mugging, for crying out loud), then looked back at Caboose to give him his own half wave with the hand that wasn't on the trigger.

"I know what it is like when you can't find a bathroom and you really, really need one," the blue soldier continued, with deep empathy in his tone. Caboose suddenly seemed to notice Suck-up. "Were you looking for a bathroom too?"

Before tan-and-yellow could answer, Grif jumped in. "Caboose. Hi. How are you? This is not—that is, this isn't what it…" actually it was exactly what it looked like, so he gave that up and went for a completely different tack. "I could use your advice."

Blue guy gasped. "Really? No one ever asks for my advice!" Yeah, Grif doubted the request came up often. "I give it to them anyways, but sometimes it would be nice to be asked."

"I'm sure," Grif said as consolingly as possible. Suck-up tried to say something but Grif just flicked the gun upwards at his face, reminding him who was in charge here. Yellow-stripes lapsed back into silence. "We're in the middle of a…a training exercise. I need to borrow his armor for…for reasons," he finished lamely. "Michaels here—"

"Matthews, sir," Suck-up corrected, a sad little sigh in his voice.

"—isn't sure about giving it to me."

"Hm," Caboose said. He turned to tan-and-yellow with his hands on his hips and finality in his stance. "Well I can fix that. Give him your armor."

"Oh," Suck-up said. He looked distinctly confused. "So, Captain Grif is really…you mean this _is_ a training exercise? Oh. Well that's…that's different. I guess."

As he started to strip – with his helmet off he had the long, soulful look of a horse unsure if it was about to be led to pasture or the glue factory – Caboose leaned towards Grif, whispering loudly, "When you're a Captain, even though you might want to be friends, sometimes you just have to be firm with them."

"I'll remember that," Grif told him. He considered the weapon in his hands then cast a glance at the armor coming off Suck-up in pieces, but he already knew that he'd have to put it down to get any of that on. For a second he almost asked the blue soldier to train his own weapon on yellow-stripes but an instinctual "NO NO NO!" rammed straight up through his gut the moment he considered it. Anyways, Suck-up didn't appear to be trying to escape, standing in the middle of the bathroom in just a pair of whitey tighties and his socks with an unsure expression on his face. Every time he glanced at Caboose, clearly trying to decide if this really was kosher, the blue soldier just gave him a firm nod that seemed to keep him in place.

Grif hesitated for another second, then set the stolen gun up against a locker and started pulling on armor. He needed a little help with some of the clasps, especially around the chest plate, but Caboose got him secured, explaining, helpfully, what each of the buttons did on the inside of his suit. Grif got the feeling the blue soldier was repeating instructions that someone else had tried to drill into his thick skull, mostly because the majority of the explanations were variations on "don't touch that one or you die" and "mess with it and I'll fucking kill you." When Grif asked exactly who was going to fucking kill him, Caboose just said, very seriously, "My best friend."

If that was a euphemism for something, Grif didn't want to know. Before picking up the helmet, the last piece of his disguise, he turned to Suck-up, now with his arms wrapped around his bare chest. He looked cold, which seemed a little weird. Just putting on the armor had Grif huffing and puffing. "Now what do we do with you?" he asked.

Taking this "we" business to heart, the blue soldier put his hands on his hips, also considering what he clearly felt was their mutual dilemma. "Maybe we should just let him go."

"No," Grif said. "I can't risk that."

His accomplice nodded in agreement. "You're right. We may need him later, and we'll want to know where we put him."

Grif snorted at that, but then his eyes fell on the lockers behind Suck-up. He grinned – tan-and-yellow looked at him in some alarm – but he strode past, opened one of the lockers that didn't have a bolt on the handle, and said, "In here."

Suck-up glanced at Caboose one more time, who again gave him that firm little nod. "Uh…okay, Captain," he said, walking towards Grif. He considered the tight quarters for a second, then folded himself into the locker with the air of someone who was going to make this work or die trying. He scrunched his shoulders up to his ears, flattened his elbows against his chest with his hands flush up against his chin, and even managed a thumbs-up at Grif once he had his legs and knees tucked in.

"Great," Grif said, and clanged the locker door shut on him. Something that might have been a pained whimper followed but Grif just said, through the vent holes at the top of the door, "No noise. Keep quiet no matter what."

"Understood, sir," came the strained reply.

Not that he really expected him to. Nobody would take the game that far. Grif spotted a broken piece of pencil on the ground, jammed it into the lock, and figured that would have to do.

With that taken care of, Grif was once again aware of the internal timer he had ticking in his head, telling him that the Reds were going to be on to him soon. He picked the helmet up off the bench, then turned to Caboose. "I'm off."

"Off where?" the blue soldier asked, curious.

Grif's first reaction was to not tell him. The second was to lie. The third was that he didn't have a clue where he should even _lie_ about going. "Well…uh, I—" he suddenly realized that he had a resource right here. "How do you get out of here?"

Caboose pointed at the bathroom door. "That way."

Right. Very helpful. Grif realized that any directions he got from this guy were going to be suspect. "Are there any maps around here?" he asked instead of trying a more specific version of his first question.

"Oh!" Caboose said. "This is a neat trick." He took the helmet still in Grif's hands, fiddled with something on the display, finally gave it a good whack with his knuckles, and then handed it back. "Floating map head!" he announced.

Grif took the helmet tentatively, wondering if whatever the blue soldier had done was going to kill him. Still, too late to start asking now. He put the helmet on and immediately understood "floating map head." There was an outline of what had to be the walls of rooms and hallways on the bottom left corner of the visor and...hell yes, he realized, looking at the two dots in the room with him. Radar.

"You…" he started, and then realized, much to his surprise, that he was about to be honest, "…have been very helpful." He jacked a thumb to the exit before this could get any weirder. "I'll just see myself out."

"I'm _always_ very helpful!" the blue soldier called out after him, but Grif just gave him an absent wave as he walked out of the locker-room and into a group of chattering privates, too intent on each other to mind that someone else had just joined them. He tapped on his visor, trying to make sense of the Heads-up Display as he mentally categorized his change in fortune.

He had armor. He had a map. Now all he needed was a fucking plan.

* * *

"Here's the plan," Sarge announced. "We hold a bake sale."

He had forgotten, apparently, that he was still on the shared channel that Simmons had set up years back for when they were in a truce with the Blues (he called it the "neutral zone" despite Grif's fake *cough*NERD*cough* every time Simmons brought it up because _someone_ *cough*GRIF*cough* had clearly grown up watching Star Trek too if he recognized where the name came from), instead of one of the private Red lines. Church snorted derisively over the radio – a noise that had only the maroon soldier cringing – and Sarge continued.

"As you all know, baked goods draw Grif like flies to a corpse."

"Sir—" Simmons tried to interject.

"Like white on rice," Donut supplied helpfully.

"Thank you, Donut."

"You know sir—"

Encouraged, Donut tried another one. "Like a fat kid on candy."

"Nobody likes a suck-up, Private."

Donut gave it up but Simmons cleared his throat over the line, said, "Like the Blues on the losing side of a war," ignoring Tucker's indignant "hey!" but acknowledging Sarge's, "Well said!" with a "Thank you, sir," before he resumed in a more pertinent vein. "But sir, I could also—"

"So we're all agreed then?" Sarge demanded in a tone that meant the question was rhetorical. "We'll start up a large, well-publicized annual bake sale—"

"Annual?" Church interjected.

Sarge ignored him "—in the hall right outside the training rooms. We'll have starving hordes of privates, right at our fingertips! Donut!" he barked, "You're in charge of baking—"

"Sir—" Simmons tried again, but Donut broke over him with an enthusiastic, "On it, sir!"

"Simmons—"

"Sir, can I suggest—"

"—you'll be in charge of publicity. Get an announcement on the PA, ASAP. Thirteen hundred hours."

"You know, I'm still at the security station, I could also take a look through the cameras to see where Grif—"

Donut coughed politely, cutting back in. "I'm sorry but one o'clock is going to be pushing it if I want to bake Aunt Ruthie's super-secret double fudge cheesecake _and_ Cousin Rachel's Mint Chocolate Chip Ice-Cream Cake. Can we make it two instead?"

"—I'm literally standing right in front of it, I wouldn't even have to go out of my way—"

Sarge growled into the line but – probably because he liked both fudge and mint chocolate chip ice-cream – finally, and grudgingly, said, "Fine. Fourteen hundred then. You get that Simmons?"

There was a pause, and then: "Yes, sir. But it's really no trouble to—"

"And make those crispy, apple doodly thingies your grandmother used to send us!" he ordered.

"—to—" the maroon soldier suddenly realized that he wasn't going to be able to follow orders. " _My_ grandmother? Uh…I would, but both of my grandmothers are dead. Years ago, before I joined up even, so they wouldn't have been able to—not that that doesn't mean that I couldn't come up with something to contribute to—"

"Oh!" Donut chimed in, with cheery comprehension. "You must be thinking of _my_ Gram Gram. You know: Gramma Hole's apple crumble snickerdoodles."

"Snickerdoodles?" Sarge asked.

"Hole?" Simmons jumped in. "You mean if your parents had decided to keep both of their names, your last name would've been Donut-Hole?"

"What sort of ridiculous name is 'snickerdoodles'?" the red sergeant continued, unmoved by Simmons' question. "I forbid you from making up anymore words, Donut-Hole."

"Well you see," Donut started. "I come from a long line of—"

"Why," Tucker broke in, before Donut could admit that he'd come from a long line of holes, "do we get Red team to help us when we're in trouble?"

"Beats me," Church answered him, recognizing that the question was for him. "Desperation? Poor short-term memory? A rare form of Stockholm Syndrome?"

"Okay," Simmons said, tone just offended enough to suggest hurt, "First of all, Stockholm Syndrome is a form of traumatic bonding that typically occurs between victims and their captors—" he paused briefly on the thought, and when he spoke again it was with a sly note to his words "—though if you're admitting that we successfully captured—"

"I wasn't admitting anything," Church cut him off, his own voice now annoyed. "I'm just saying…Tucker, tell him what I was saying."

Tucker snorted, "You were admitting that you fucking blow at smack-talk, whereas _I_ —"

"Need to get back to work," Wash cut in. He'd been pretending that he couldn't hear the Red team's idiotic plan to get Grif back, busy working out the logistics for this month's training schedule and the ammunition they'd need (versus what they could spare) for target practice, but Tucker fell far enough into his arena of responsibility that he felt obligated to break his silence. "If you can talk, you're not running fast enough."

"Yeeeaaaah," Tucker said, dragging out the word, "I'm not running at all. Captain's delegate shit like that."

"Can we focus please?" Simmons asked, but interested parties were thin on the ground and he didn't get an answer.

"Yeeeaaah," Wash said right back, in a slightly flatter tone, "Start running, _Captain_ , or I'll delegate the rest of today's PT to you on the understanding that you'll run every mile with _every_ squad, platoon, and company on this base."

Tucker swore but otherwise shut up, presumably doing as he was told.

"And Church, would you also get back to work please?" Wash added, not really asking. "Oh, and Carolina…" he waited a moment, pausing for dramatic effect, but when she didn't respond he asked, "Carolina?"

"Sorry," Church said in a voice that was not sorry at all. "She's busy."

Wash was silent for a moment before he figured it out. "You're purposefully keeping her off the radio?"

Church scoffed at him. "Purposefully? She _asked_ me to. Carolina, Wash wants you."

"Yes?" she asked, voice joining the channel at last.

"Oh," he said, surprised and a little chagrined. Honestly, he'd been about to drop an insult on Church that worked better if he acted like he was talking to someone else. "Uh, do you have, well…"

"You're a woman," Sarge abruptly pointed out. Wash, relieved at the interruption, swallowed the urge to tell Sarge to get back to work too. "You must have at least one recipe for the Annual Grif Bait Bake Sale."

"Okay, seriously," Church said. "Annual?"

Carolina, having hung out with the Reds and Blues long enough to both expect and subsequently ignore their base idiocy, didn't bother pointing out to Sarge that she'd joined up right after she graduated and – between the elite training and the absurd mission rates – hadn't eaten anything other than mess hall slop cooked by someone else since high school. "And what is the point of this bake sale?" she asked instead, just keeping the exasperation out of her voice.

"It's obvious! We'll lure Grif in, and when he's least expecting it I'll—"

"Shooting's out," the agent said, realizing she didn't need to hear the whole plan.

There was silence on Sarge's end. "Shooting's out?"

"Shooting's out," she repeated firmly.

Sarge was silent for another moment. "Dagnabbit woman, then what's the point?"

Church laughed and Carolina, deciding she didn't have time for this right now, said, "Leave it alone, Epsilon. We've got other things to deal with."

"What other things?" Simmons asked, both curious and annoyed that, per usual, Red team issues didn't get priority.

"There's some weird suicide outbreak going on in the city," Church answered for Carolina. "Looks like it might've started in the medical ward. Could be a Charon plot, so Kimball's having us look into it."

"…ah," Simmons said, speaking slightly faster – and higher – than normal. "That _is_ weird so Sarge two o'clock for that bake sale? I'll get right on that."

"Oh no you don't," Tucker said, words hitching a little. He was either running or faking well. "That little suicidal outbreak? That—"

"Is very, very interesting," Simmons filled in for him, still talking too fast. "But completely unrelated. Wouldn't you agree, Donut?"

"It is!" Donut promptly agreed. "Though Sarge _did_ make a machine this morning that did exactly that."

There was a silence in which you could actually hear Simmons banging his head off a control panel. In the background the Security kid was asking, "Sir?" in a concerned voice.

"… _what_?" Carolina finally said, very tightly.

The banging stopped. " _Very_ interesting," Simmons declared, a little more desperately. "Also, did you know that I can make chocolate chip cookies? Or bars. I'm really good at chocolate chip cookie bars."

"I know, right?" Donut answered her, missing her tone entirely. "What a coincidence!"

"Sarge?" she prompted, in a voice that meant danger was brewing.

"Mm," Sarge grunted. "The Dopacide Device. Didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped."

"Oh gee," Church said. "There's a shock."

Caboose, breaking into the channel for the first time, announced, to absolutely everyone and no one at all: "I would like everybody to know that I have found the bathroom."

This was hardly groundbreaking news; everybody went ahead and ignored it.

"Again," he added.

"Creamed some guy called Steve," Donut explained helpfully, still talking to Carolina. "I'm not exactly sure what happened, though it sounded like he might've slit his wrists."

"Good for you," Tucker told Caboose absently, breathing harder now but clearly enjoying the windup to the ream-out that the Reds were about to get. "It was set to target anyone with—" pause to breathe "—Type O blood."

"Type—?"

"And also that guy looking for the bathroom," Caboose persisted, unconcerned that no one was listening to him.

"Type O," Tucker repeated. "Don't—" he took another deep breath "—ask."

" _Sarge_ ," she growled.

"He even asked for my advice," the blue soldier went on. "He is a very nice and polite person. Unlike some people I could name, except that I am not the kind of person that names names."

"See, now I actually _want_ to ask," Church said.

"Like Tucker."

"Shut up, Caboose0—" Tucker took a breathing break, then continued, "—nobody cares." Another pause, and then, "No Church—" quick hitch "—you really don't."

This did not deter Caboose in the least. "Then I gave him directions, and he borrowed armor from another guy."

"Genius always has scoffers," Sarge explained to…well, probably himself, considering that no one else thought he qualified, no matter what Simmons claimed to believe about his former superior officer.

"It made sense at the time," the maroon soldier added, dropping his desperate attempts to redirect the conversation and ignoring Caboose (who'd continued his story with, "And then we locked that guy in a locker in case we needed him for later"). At Sarge's annoyed grumble Simmons hastily went on. "And it definitely still makes sense now, but the details aren't pertinent and the scientific breakdown would take too much time so can we move on please?"

"Right," Church snorted. "Here's another explanation: you guys are fucking stupid."

Tucker, still trying to talk through his running, managed "So—" breath "— _technically—"_

"Does anyone here actually remember that this started as an attempt to find Grif?" Wash asked before Tucker could start another argument on the definition of the word "technically." He'd heard enough of those without the gasping-for-breath version. "Anyone at all? You know: Captain Grif. Usually wears orange. Thinks he's sixteen years old."

"Oh," Caboose cut in, unexpectedly responding to Wash; it was always a surprise when it turned out he'd been listening. "I _do_ know. But even though I've been finding people all day – you know, the guy looking for a bathroom and the guy we locked _in_ the bathroom – I have not seen the orange guy at all today."

"Wait a minute," Donut said, finally catching on to the fact that Caboose was saying something that might make for good gossip later. "Why did you lock a guy in the bathroom?"

"He locked him in a _locker_ ," Simmons snapped, concerned, as always, with accuracy, before turning back to Church and Carolina. "The good news is that it's not a Charon plot. You can ask Dr. Grey about it."

"Dr. Grey knows about it? Why would—"

"Because!" Sarge exclaimed. "Dr. Grey has an appreciation for the finer points of—"

"Hold up," Wash said, cutting off both Carolina and Sarge as he suddenly started tracking on Donut and Caboose's conversation. " _Who_ did you lock in a locker?"

"The guy we borrowed the armor from."

Caboose's story now had everyone's interest; at least no one tried to interrupt, though you could still hear Tucker (who hadn't clicked off his line) breathing hard as he ran. Wash sounded more than a little baffled when he followed this up with another question. "Why did you borrow armor from someone?"

"Because the first guy – the guy looking for a bathroom – which I found, I don't know if you remembered that part," he added, wanting credit where credit was due now that he could tell everyone was really listening "– was wearing a dress. One of the ones from the hospital."

"A dress?" Donut asked, recognizing his area of expertise. "You found someone in a dress? A dress from the hospital? Oh!" He went abruptly, identifying the incorrect term for what it actually was, "You mean a hospital—"

He sucked a sharp gasp of air between his teeth. Tucker stopped running.

Nobody said anything but "hospital gown" hung, quite clearly, over the open channel.

"And that's why you should never get a Blue to do a Red job," Sarge recited with finality, like the narrator delivering the day's moral at the end of a children's television show, but Simmons just gargled, like he wanted to call Caboose so many different things that they'd all tried to come up at once and gotten choked up in his throat.

"It was very ugly on him," Caboose assured them.

"No kidding," Tucker said, breath back again. "You found a guy wandering around in a hospital gown. You found a guy that had clearly just left the hospital and your automatic response – the very first thought that crossed your mind, instead of telling anyone, was—now stick with me—"

Wash cut to the chase. "Let me get this straight: you found Grif in a bathroom, helped him steal someone's armor, locked _that_ person in a locker, and then gave Grif directions."

Caboose sniffed rather pointedly. "We did not steal it. We _borrowed_ it." He sniffed again, trying to get across the point that he wouldn't do anything so low, but then conceded, "But everything else sounds right."

There was another silence before someone choked down what sounded suspiciously like a laugh; only Church knew that "someone" was actually – unbelievably – Carolina. "And all before lunchtime," the AI commented. "You've had a very productive morning."

"You know, I was thinking it was a good day," Caboose told him, tone both not-so-secretly pleased and openly conspiratorial, "but I was kind of afraid it was just me."

"If your directions actually take him out of the city," Tucker concluded in a voice that was almost admiring, "I'm giving you a gold star."

"Caboose," Simmons said at last, finally finding his voice. "The orange guy and the guy looking for a bathroom are the same. Fucking. Person."

Caboose was silent for a long moment. "He did not look orange to me."

Sarge – who never counted his chickens before they were hatched – said more calmly than he ought, "Get to it, Donut. Auntie Gram Gram's crumbly mint fudge bars won't make themselves."

Simmons, however, was still stuck on the inanity of it all. "Are you…are you telling me that you don't recognize anyone when they're out of uniform?"

"Sounds about right," Church stated with the air of a disinterested – if utterly amused – observer.

"Did you not notice that their names were the same?" Simmons demanded.

"Yeah," Tucker said, adopting the same tone as Church, "I don't think that's the sort of thing that really computes with Caboose."

"I'm sorry, son," Sarge told him in his I-have-a-plan-despite-you-dirty-Blues voice, "but you're off the search party."

"I don't think he was ever _on_ the search party."

"Point," the red soldier acknowledged. "Simmons, invite Captain Caboose to join our search.

"Uh…" the maroon soldier started, and then, deciding that that wasn't the stupidest thing that had happened today, just went with it. "Caboose, do you want to be on the search party?"

Caboose seemed to think about that. "May I bring my own binoculars?"

"You—yes. Fine. Bring your own binoculars."

"Then I will gladly join you and your friends!"

"Welcome!" Donut exclaimed over Caboose's excited, "What are we looking for?"

"Doesn't matter," Sarge answered, now that it was officially and formally done. "You're off the search party."

"Unwelcome!" Donut said promptly, though just as cheerfully.

"Now that's just mean," Church pronounced over the blue soldier's disappointed "Aww."

"Come back when you've learned your colors," Simmons added, more than a little spitefully.

Wash sighed, ignoring the ensuing argument ( _no, no – not colors, he knows his colors, he needs to work on his facial recognition_ , and then a side spat about whether "Tucker did it" was an acceptable line of defense), and when he spoke it was to Carolina. "You want me to figure out who he locked in a locker, don't you?"

Knowing that he would've done it anyways – Agent Washington had a strong sense of duty to all the soldiers on base, probably because he knew most of them through their physical training sessions – Carolina just said, "Have at it, Wash."

"Things could be worse," Tucker pointed out, abruptly dropping out of the spat, which went on without him. Caboose wasn't exactly holding his own, but since he was too stupid to recognize when he was losing, he could be at it for hours without backup.

Church snorted. "Famous last words."

"Keep running," Wash ordered absently. Tucker groaned but took off again. "Simmons, could you make another announcement? There are thirty bathrooms in this section of the city alone, I don't like my chances of finding our mystery guy without help. Unless…Caboose, which bathroom are you in?"

"The one with the guy locked in it," Caboose answered him. "But I'm not there anymore. Do you want me to find another one? I'm very good at it. Only there might not be anyone in a locker in that one, though there will be toilets which is usually what I'm looking for when…"

Wash exhaled, long and slow, letting the blue soldier talk himself out on the subject. "That's what I thought."

"Like Tucker said," Church remarked, grin in his voice. "Could be worse."

* * *

Honestly, Grif thought, pretending he really was being honest with himself, it could be a lot worse.

Unfortunately, it was still pretty fucking bad.

The map on his Heads-Up Display had to be wrong. It had to. Otherwise this evil facility really was the size of a city. And if it _was_ the size of a city…

Good luck. Good fucking luck just trying to find a way out of here.

The overhead PA system chimed twice, and then the cool voice of the operator said, "If you find a guy—" she seemed to falter on the word, then kept going, "—locked in a bathroom locker, please let him out and then send him to HQ for debriefing."

So yeah: that was worse. Grif kept his shoulders relaxed, but picked up the pace.

"Also," the announcement continued. "If you are either O negative, O positive, or find yourself feeling unexpectedly suicidal, please see your doctor." There was a silence but she hadn't clicked off the overhead system because you could hear a couple of indecipherable whispers. "…And," she went on at last, "bake sale at two. Near the Training Center on level 2A."

Suicidal doctor visits. That sounded like more Red bullshit. Though the bake sale, Grif had to admit, was tempting. He wasn't really hungry at the moment, but there wasn't a Grif alive who'd turn down baked goods, hungry or not. Unfortunately, he didn't know where he was, let alone where training center 2A might be.

Distracted, trying to understand the map on his HUD while the thought of fresh, home baked brownies kept intruding on his thoughts, a unit of soldiers, loping forward faster than Grif had expected, ran right into him.

There were cries of "hey!" "out of the way!" and "watch where you're going!" but it wasn't until Grif recognized the guy at the end of the formation that he got worried. Pimp Daddy – a bright splash of blue against the whitewashed walls – wasn't looking at him (didn't have any reason to look at Grif, in his new military-grade camouflage), but he didn't want to give him any excuses.

"Let me run with you for a bit," Grif said to a soldier on his right, turning his back on the aquamarine soldier and already jogging to catch up.

"Suit yourself," he responded, uninterested.

Grif worked his way across the column, the line of privates probably annoyed but letting him in anyways. Pimp Daddy struck him as competent, but as he'd clearly been around more for the entertainment value of whatever Grif's particular experiment was rather than to actually help, Grif wasn't too worried about him actively looking for him. He just needed to stay up and out of his line of sight, until he could get away.

Easier said than done. Grif's heart was already pounding in his chest, breaths ragged as he gasped for air. But it was amazing what you could do when you knew you didn't have a choice.

Grif spotted a side hall up on the left, and approaching fast. He worked his way over the last few feet, now on the outside of the running column, and ducked into the quiet hallway as neat as you please.

He staggered heavily against the wall, fighting off the urge to remove his helmet until the end of the line – Pimp Daddy pushing them onwards – passed. The second the danger was gone, Grif yanked the helmet off his head, gasping hard for breath.

Grif leaned his head back against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor with the helmet between his knees. Lungs burning, he opened his eyes at the ceiling and realized, as his vision started to constrict, that he was actually fighting off the urge to pass out.

Shit. Grif knew he was out of shape but…shit, not _that_ bad.

Not to mention how hot it was in here. Mind you, that was probably from the running. Grif closed his eyes, feeling the heat burn in his face, and thought, _let cooler heads prevail_.

It was an old idiom – the kind of thing that his friends would have laughed at him for, if they'd known about it – but one that had served him well. Kai didn't get it (never had, but then she didn't really need to with him around) but Grif had weathered worse shit than this, just by putting his head down and moving forward without panicking. Let cooler heads prevail.

Grif opened his eyes, trying to visualize the overwhelming size of the map.

Fuck this shit, he decided, looking down at the helmet in his lap. His vision had stopped tunneling so he reached a hand in and felt around the visor, trying to toggle off the display. He'd do this the old fashioned way.

"You okay?" someone asked.

Grif was on his feet in seconds, helmet skittering away across the floor, safety off and rifle cushioned solidly against his shoulder.

 _What the hell_ , he thought, more unnerved by that than the soldier in front of him, hands up in unwitting parallel to tan-and-yellow earlier. _How the hell did I know how to do that?_

"Whoa," the guy said, dropping his arms. He wore purple armor but looked, somehow, completely guileless. "I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that. My bad!"

Grif let the weapon drop, trying to remember how to turn the safety back on. He had to work back through the last couple of seconds, thinking through what his hands had done on their own, and finally just guessed which lever was the safety. He fumbled on the catch for a second, then had the rifle back under control.

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry about that. Caught me by surprise."

"Well I'll say!" the purple soldier exclaimed. "You about gave me a heart attack!"

"Right," Grif said noncommittally, wondering, when the guy didn't move away, what he wanted.

"Anyways," Purple went on, "I've been in this intensive meditation course all morning – Dr. Grey recommended this great therapist on base who says she can have my little, well, _personality_ issue licked in no time – so I officially have no idea what anyone else has been up to at all today! Not even a little! Anything new?"

"Uh," Grif said, "No. I should be…"

"Right, right," Purple said, recognizing a rebuff. He leaned down to pick up Grif's helmet for him, brushing it off before he handed it back. "I'm sure you've got things to do. Oh!" he added, before Grif could fully take it out of his hands. "Have you seen Donut? He said he had some Yoga tips for me, but for some reason I can't seem to find him at all. Actually," he admitted, evidently unaware that they were both still holding the helmet, "I can't seem to find anybody today. Nobody's at their usual posts except Lopez, and all he'll say is that Donut is an idiota."

Grif faltered, recognizing Princess Peach's real name (or not – he still hadn't decided for certain whether Donut could be anyone's real name). "You're one of the red soldiers," he guessed, though he kept the question out of his voice. Abruptly he took in the color of his armor again. "Uh. Blue, I mean."

Purple seemed surprised at that. But then he visibly – Grif couldn't have told you how, the guy was in full body armor – brightened. "You really think so?" He sounded delighted. "I guess I _am_ basically one of the original gang. I was afraid that was presumptuous – I mean, of course I could call Donut on the radio, but I'm not technically allowed on the neutral zone because the neutral zone, as you know, was created back when O'Malley first—well, no reason to rehash old history, right?"

Finally managing to tug the helmet out of the soldier's hands, Grif started to edge away, deciding he didn't care why the guy thought he wasn't allowed into Romulan airspace (seriously, how many people in this facility had confused the lines between fiction and reality?). While Purple obviously wasn't involved in whatever experiment they had Grif enrolled in, or he'd have recognized him and called it in on the radio, he still—

Grif stopped edging away suddenly. Radio.

Oh damn. Didn't hurt to try.

"So you have the frequency that you guys use to talk to one another?" he asked. "I have a question for…" names failed him momentarily – where the hell was his mind at? – until he came up with "Caboose," remembering that that wasn't actually a stupid nickname. Just stupid.

Again, Purple seemed surprised, but then he took in Grif's armor and said, "Right. New uniform. So your radio doesn't have any of the defaults programmed into it yet?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Nice color, by the way."

Yellow stripes? Grif begged to differ. Bu whatever, he could think what he wanted. Purple took the helmet still in Grif's hands, and then seemed to realize something.

"Don't you know the—"

"Forgot it," Grief explained, cutting him off before he could think about it too hard.

The purple soldier shrugged. "Well, happens to the best of us! I'm pretty sure they're still using…" he was working something in the headset built into the helmet, which whined, fuzzed, and then suddenly picked up the tinny sound of voices "…there we go. The neutral zone. They haven't switched in a while."

"Great," Grif said as he took the helmet back, unable to believe his luck. Was there something in the water? Note to self: don't drink anything here. "This is just…great. Thanks."

"No problem!" Purple waved at him, already walking away. "If you see Donut, let him know I'm looking for him—" and then, in an entirely different voice, "—you fat tub of lard."

Grif blinked. You fat…what?

"Sorry!" Purple called back to him, voice truly apologetic as it faded away.

Okay, _that_ seemed normal. Grif brushed it off, already heading in the opposite direction, as he peered at the interior of the helmet one more time. The headset buzzed and Grif thought, _here goes_.

"—actually surprised?" someone asked, very clearly, as the helmet came down over his face. "Of course it was Matthews. Well, get him up here as soon as he can feel his legs again. We need to talk to him."

"The sooner the better," someone else said in Grif's ear, and hell if it really didn't matter that they'd already found the guy in the locker.

* * *

 _AN: I went old school on this story for the Reds' interactions. Simmons isn't nearly as deferential to Sarge in the later seasons, though I think a person could argue that it'll always be his default setting (especially considering that, as a cyborg, he probably actually has default settings – programmed by Sarge, no less). Or maybe that's just me. Anyways, the Reds are the best when they play off of each other, so that's_ my _default setting. I love these idiots._

 _Also, yes, there are multiple Red radio channels, at Sarge's insistence. He has different channels for different occasions. One just for him and Lopez, another for when Simmons is pretending to be a Blue, three or four that pointedly include everyone except Grif (and I mean EVERYONE everyone: O'Malley even has access to this one and Sarge tried to get Maine posthumously added), one for Tuesdays, and still another for when they're in serious trouble. Simmons calls that one H.W.H.A.P. (for "Houston We Have a Problem;" Simmons reads out every letter but the rest of them say it like a sound effect in an old episode of Batman). At this point there's thirty or forty Red frequencies in all, though Simmons has to keep reshuffling the names so that Sarge doesn't realize that they don't actually have over 800 private channels._


	5. Chapter 5

_Did you know that I once thought that 13,000 words was going to be half of this story's word count? *Laughs and weeps at the same time*_

* * *

"Oh good," Church said, surveying Matthews from his perch on Wash's shoulder. "He has a weapon now."

No one had thought to offer the private a shirt on his way back to HQ, let alone a pair of pants, so they had the privilege of discovering what an almost entirely naked Private Matthews looked like when he was nervous. Which was pathetic. "Captain Grif said it was part of a training exercise. Sir. Uh…sirs."

"And _why_ ," Wash asked, drawing out the word with more pain than actual question in his voice, "would you believe him?"

"You're seriously asking _Matthews_ that," Church pointed out.

Behind them Carolina and Kimball spoke in quiet undertones while Doyle not-so-secretly eavesdropped from his position at the comm center. Simmons, on the other hand, was openly listening to Wash question Matthews, leaning over the security kid but with his visor turned their direction. There were about ten privates assigned to security detail on any given shift, but Simmons had only been allowed the one (shoved into an out-of-the-way booth), since the rest were watching the city for "incidences" over at the main console. "Incident" was the current code word for "suicide."

As to Church, the private's entrance had been the excuse the AI had needed and he'd jumped ship to Wash before Carolina could get into _why_ the entire city of Armonia was suddenly on suicide-watch. He didn't want to help the agent explain to Kimball that the suicide thing had Red/Blue origins. No matter how many times they explained that the two were different teams, the rebel commander still paired them together in her head. When the Reds did stupid shit, she categorized it as Blue shit too.

Matthews swallowed. "Captain Caboose confirmed the order, sir. He was really quite firm about it." He seemed to recognize that wasn't enough and added another desperately hopeful, "Sir."

Wash considered him for a very long moment. Breathe in through the mouth. Out the nose. " _Why_ ," he repeated, now speaking through painfully gritted teeth because breathing in and out calmly couldn't do jack when you had to work around Caboose, " _would you believe him?"_

"I…I thought his memories were coming back, sir. And when Captain Caboose ordered me to hand over my uniform I assumed…" he trailed off, hangdog expression pitiful, even for him.

"Well, the good news is that we know where he was half an hour ago. That's him, coming out of the bathroom," Simmons said, pointing at a silent security screen.

"Fun fact: there's no 'we' in team," Church said. "Just a 'me' and an extra 't' and an 'a,' so you can go ahead and assume this is still on you and the rest of Team Asshole. _You_ know where he was half an hour ago," he continued, popping into existence above Simmons' shoulder despite his supposed disinterest, " _we're_ just here until some real work comes along." The AI crossed his arms and appraised the figure on the screen anyways, like a critic in an art gallery. "You're sure that's him?"

Simmons glanced at him, but otherwise pretended it didn't annoy him when Church took up residence in his armor without asking for permission. And then insulted him. "Either that or some other fat guy is wearing Matthews' armor."

Wash actually managed an amused snort at that. "Right. I think you can safely assume it's Grif. Where—"

"Damn," the security kid declared suddenly, as on-screen Grif took a right into a side hall. He immediately apologized ("Sorry sir,") like the Reds and Blues didn't swear like a pack of marines themselves, and then went on. "Maintenance route. It'll take me some time to figure out where he came out again."

Simmons immediately looked down at Church, but the AI had already transferred back into Wash's armor, bored now that there was nothing to look at. The maroon soldier spotted him and asked, "Would it be too much to ask that you track him?"

"I think _I've_ been over how _we_ spell—" Church started, but Wash went ahead and interrupted the re-insult. "You _do_ know the specific armor model Grif's wearing now."

"Oh!" Matthews said brightly from behind them, responding to the hope that he might've done something good after all. There was some question as to whether he knew _why_ the type of armor Captain Grif was wearing mattered, but like any good suck-up he recognized opportunity when it presented itself. "That's right! It's _my_ armor. Lots of people recognize—"

"Rebel soldier," Church interjected without acknowledging the private, speaking to Wash like that ended the argument.

"And?" Wash asked, not getting it.

"In the federal army," Church explained, "every soldier is assigned a specific armor model and number, which is recorded on a file that I could pull up for you if you were the kind of obsessive-compulsive that was into RAM-hogging spreadsheets. I'm looking at you, Simmons." Simmons made a sound of protest, which the AI ignored. "Rebels just put on whatever shit they find lying around."

"And then they deface it," Doyle added suddenly, loud enough for the whole room to hear. Apparently the general could multitask his eavesdropping.

"It's paint, Doyle," Kimball called back in that I-want-to-snap-at-you-but-I'm-doing-my-best-to-work-with-you-you-federal-scum voice she'd probably created just for the general. Evidently she too could actively listen to two entirely different discussions at once. "My men happen to have actual personalities, and I therefore allow them to personalize their equipment."

"Okay," Wash said loudly to Simmons, putting his hands up like he was washing his hands of the business. As with all things Wash, it had the added benefit of calming down the argument that was about to explode between the two faction leaders, which had been the point. Could he multitask like a boss? He could multitask like a boss. "As of right now there are no longer any third party bystanders involved in this mess. You're not going to suck me into this. This is still primarily your responsibility, Simmons."

"Only that 'me' in team," Church reminded him.

The maroon soldier exhaled loudly, just to let them know how annoyed he was. "You mean it's _Red Team's_ responsibility. It's always _just_ Red Team's responsibility when it involves one of us." Church started to say something and Simmons snapped, "Stuff it," before he clicked suddenly into the neutral zone. "Because Caboose is a fucking moron, Grif is wearing Private Matthews' armor. Just FYI, if you happen to see Private Matthews' armor walking around without Private Matthews in it."

"You get kid of bitchy when you're mad, don't you?" Church asked easily.

"And Private Matthews' armor is…" Tucker's voice prompted on the line.

"Very pretty. Standard grade. Being worn by Grif."

"I'm asking for colors, dipshit."

Donut tsked, then said in a _hello-duh_ voice: "Dull bronze with neon highlights."

"Tan with yellow stripes," Simmons translated. "He's wearing tan and yellow armor."

"Who is wearing bland and mellow armor?" came Caboose's voice.

"No, Caboose. Just no."

"I thought you needed all the help you could get," Church remarked with a nasty grin in his voice.

Tucker snickered. "I hate to betray my own party here—" ("Why?" the blue soldier asked. "No one likes your parties.") "—shut up Caboose, maroon team's entire intramural beach volleyball team didn't think so last night—" Carolina choked a little before going back to her conversation with Kimball, but that was the only indication that the agent might actually be paying at least some sort of attention to their half of the room "—but I'm with Simmons on this one."

"Oh, and before I forget," Simmons added with all the mock _by-the-way_ nonchalance he could pack into the phrase, ignoring both the AI and the aquamarine soldier very badly if his deeply irritated tone was anything to go by, "Grif has a _gun_ now."

"Speaking of which," Wash said, turning back to Matthews (successfully ignoring the sudden round of "Well _that_ doesn't sound promising!" "You guys don't fuckup by halves, do you?" and "It was _Caboose's_ fault!" in his ear), "it's against regulation to hand over your weapon to any third party – even a superior." A rule instigated shortly after the Federal Army and the New Republic had been forced into cooperation with one another, about the same time they decided that integrating the two factions by putting Fed leaders in charge of rebel troops (and vice versa) was a fantastically stupid idea. "I expected better from you."

Matthews looked positively alarmed that Agent Washington's opinion of him might be in danger of slipping. "I didn't—but Captain Caboose—!"

"Hasn't Grif taught you anything?" Simmons interjected, cutting off his radio before Tucker could finish an impressively detailed insult about Red army military training. The maroon soldier huffed suddenly, annoyed because he'd just realized what he'd said. "Of course he didn't teach you anything. Never—"

"Never trust a Blue!" Sarge burst in unexpectedly, striding into the room with Donut on his heels. His helmet was under his arm and he was clearly in the middle of taste-testing whatever treat the pink soldier was holding out to him on a rather decorative napkin, which explained why he hadn't joined in the radio conversation earlier. "Simmons! What's the ETA on those chocolate chip cookies?"

Simmons, who'd been going to say "Never stand within fifty feet of a projectile weapon and Caboose at the same time" faltered, leaning back guiltily from the security console. "Uh…if you mean chocolate chip cookie _bars_ , they're in the oven."

"What?" Church asked. "How the hell did you manage that? You've been in this room the whole time."

"No I wasn't. I—"

" _Bars_?" Sarge demanded, "Chocolate chip cookie _bars_?"

"You mean that two minute break you took ten minutes ago? I thought you were in the little girls' room."

The maroon soldier ignored Church, still trying to lean back from the security console as though the red sergeant might not notice he wasn't working on something bake sale related that way. "I thought you'd approved the bar version, sir. They'll, uh, they'll definitely knock your socks off." ("I take it back," the AI interjected in the background, "You _were_ in the little girls' room.") "They're easier to—" he realized that Sarge, who was watching him with suspicion in his stance like he'd finally cottoned on to the fact that Simmons hadn't prioritized the Annual Grif-Bait Bake Sale, didn't care. "Do I need to…make cookies instead?"

"He can make both!" Donut suggested, folding up the napkin and tucking it back into one of his wrist-guards.

Sarge wiped what had to be fudge off the corner of his mouth, opened his mouth to say something, spotted the glob of sugary goodness now on his thumb, and took a second to suck it off because the Red Army never wasted valuable resources. It must have put him in a better mood, because when he spoke it was in a grudgingly calm voice. "No time for that. I need you and Donut to set up tables outside the training hall."

"I'll be right there," Simmons agreed as Sarge jammed his helmet back on his head. "I just need to…" he gestured vaguely at the computer screen.

"Don't waste your time," Sarge ordered, readjusting his visor. Wash, trying to stand pointedly _away_ from the security console before someone tried to get him involved, must have made some sort of noise because the red soldier actually looked over at him to finish explaining. "The bake sale is our best and only option!"

"Okay, got him," the security kid said, pointing at the primary screen on his console. "There he is – level 2A plumbing access, about fifteen minutes ago. See? He's—"

"Yessiree," Sarge cut him off, banging one gauntleted hand against the other, unperturbed – as always – by being proven wrong. "The _only_ way to find Private Grif."

" _Captain_ Grif," Matthews corrected helpfully.

Sarge, swinging around to talk more pointedly to Wash (who was now trying to lean away from Sarge himself), somehow managed to clip Matthews on the side of the head with the stock of his shotgun. "Make _him_ come to _us_."

Simmons, who knew what it was like to be cut off when you were in the middle of explaining yourself, turned back to the security kid, who was staring at Sarge in either incredulity or outright fear. It was hard to tell under the helmet. "He's what?"

It took a second for the private to remember, in the post-haze of a drive-by Sarging, what he was going to say, but he pulled his thoughts back in order when he remembered that he answered to Captain Simmons and not a red-armored despot. "Oh, uh…uh right there, sir," he said, pointing at the screen. "He just went around that corner and—" he flipped through several view screens, but Grif was once again nowhere to be found. He swore softly under his breath, trying a few more angles, then huffed out a short breath. "Gone again." He glanced up at Simmons. "Ventilation _and_ plumbing meet up there. Captain Grif must've gotten lucky again."

"See," Matthews pointed out to Sarge, tone still helpful. " _Captain_ Grif."

The red sergeant "accidentally" thwacked him again, but the private only cringed and protested with a sad little, "Ow, sir," without breaking his regulation stance.

"Dismissed," Wash said to Matthews, before Sarge could hit him again. "Simmons…" he clapped the maroon soldier on the back, "he's bound to run out of luck eventually."

"Are you sure you don't need me?" Matthews tried rather cautiously to the group at large, watching Sarge's shotgun out of the corner of his eye. "I could—"

"Luck!" Sarge scoffed, and absolutely no one noticed that he'd cut off Private Matthews, who withered a little. "What luck? That lazy excuse for a soldier will come _sprinting_ back to the fold, once we've baited our trap. To the training hall! But first: to the cafeteria for spare tables."

"Right, _luck_ ," Church said to Wash, over Donut's rather jaunty salute and "aye aye, sir!" to Sarge.

Wash gave the AI a look. "What else could it be?"

Church didn't glance at Simmons (simultaneously trying to look like he was about to draw away from the security console for Sarge's benefit and not like he was focused on the pair of them instead) but the AI was definitely aware of the maroon soldier's sudden scrutiny because his tone got just a little more pointedly insulting. "I'm just saying: out of all the Reds, Grif is the only one who was ever any actual trouble."

The noise Simmons made was both hurt and annoyed. "Now that's just patently untrue. I'm the one who—"

"Those tables won't set themselves up, Simmons," Sarge pointed out, with enough annoyed rebuke in his tone to get him fake-moving again. "Matthews!" The private – clearly torn between slinking away and waiting to see if anyone else in authority might need him – jumped to attention. "Put on some pants, private."

"Well, see, I wanted to, but they said—Agent Washington needed—"

"And then report to the cafeteria. On the double! That goes for you too, Simmons."

Matthews, looking ecstatic at the thought of helping recapture his captain, immediately darted from the room to presumably find a pair of pants as Simmons started to reluctantly withdraw from the security console.

"This doesn't make any sense," the security kid declared, re-catching Simmons' attention. He tapped the screen, rapidly jumping through empty halls and doorways. "You said he doesn't remember anything, right? Because Captain Grif is definitely…" he trailed off, distracted by a sudden flurry of activity at the main security station.

"Yes?" Simmons prompted, getting away with not immediately following Sarge's orders, as the red sergeant was busy trying to peer over at whatever Carolina and Kimball were now looking at on screen.

"Sorry, sir. He's definitely following the maintenance routes. I can't track him."

Simmons set his hands back on the security console, leaning in as his eyebrows furrowed. "He's _only_ using the maintenance routes? You're absolutely—"

Sarge abruptly remembered the bake sale. "Simmons!"

"On my way," he said promptly, before turning to look hopefully at Wash. "Couldn't Church just…" he trailed off, hoping that someone with more sway than him might fill in the blanks.

"Couldn't Church just _what_?" the AI asked him, in an uninviting tone.

"Oh c'mon, how many seconds would it take you to run some sort of recognition program, now that we know what he's wearing? It would be a lot faster than—"

"Epsilon," Carolina snapped suddenly, loud enough to get their attention. "Recess is over. You're with me. We've got an incident that needs dealing with."

Church was on her shoulder before anyone had noticed him leaving Wash's. He took one look at the views screen and actually laughed. "Who is…is that Private Lockley?" He sounded amused. "Carbon monoxide may not be the most original way to go, but I'll give him points for scale. If he manages to back up the exhaust release, he'll flood half the city."

"Which is why we're leaving right now." She looked over at Simmons. "You're on your own."

"And I'm backup for any other 'incidences'," Wash fake-apologized in an overly bland voice, speaking over Kimball's, "Report back here once you're done." (Doyle, suddenly realizing that he was about to be left out of the conversation entirely, added, "Please do.") He made the verbal quotations as obvious as he could, just to remind Simmons about what those "incidences" were and where they had originated. Reds reaped what Reds sowed. "I'm on call, as it were. Sorry."

"But—"

"Simmons," Sarge growled as Carolina and Church pushed past both him and Donut.

Wash, suddenly feeling a little bad at Simmons' obvious frustration, gave him a more sincere, "I wouldn't worry too much, if I were you. Luck like that can't last."

"It isn't luck!" came the rapidly fading retort from the AI. Wash turned to say something to him, but he and Carolina had just exited stage left, Donut giving them a thumbs on the way out.

Doc entered stage right, so Donut didn't even have to change his hand gesture to give him a thumbs up on the way in. The purple medic brightened at the sight. "Well hey guys! So this is where you've been! I've been looking for you all over the place. Was that—"

"Not now, Doctor," Kimball said a little absently, anxiety written in her stance as she watched the drama on the security screen unfold.

He abruptly registered the number of people standing around security. "Is this a bad time?" he asked the pink soldier.

"I wouldn't say that _exactly,_ but—"

"Simmons!" Sarge ordered from the door as one of the privates on security, watching her friend at the exhaust release go down under a rather magnificent – and absurdly fast – blow by Agent Carolina, flipped the medic a rather rude gesture.

"It's a bad time," Doc decided. "I'll come back later." For a second it looked like he was going to leave, but then he stopped as though remembering something. "By the way, is there something going on with Grif? He didn't look too—"

"Shut _up_ , Doc," Simmons snapped, unable to deal with one more thing at the moment. He leaned over the security kid, talking out loud to himself. "It has to be luck, but…there aren't any signs so how the fuck is he—"

"Simmons!"

Simmons fought down the urge to snap back at the red sergeant and finally managed a mostly calm, "Just keep me posted" to the private, something niggling at him as he started towards the door. Regular-Grif knew the maintenance routes like the back of his hand (he was the reason Simmons knew the general location of all the city's cameras; the orange soldier could disappear for hours on any given day just by using all of the city's blind spots to his advantage), but mentally de-aged Grif shouldn't know. There was something there, something…

"Simmons!" Sarge barked, and the maroon soldier hopped-to. He'd figure it out later.

* * *

Grif put both hands behind his neck, his back to the toilets and his jaw tightening at the rows of useless lockers in front of him, and very quietly – silently, in fact, like always – raged at his run of worthless luck.

So apparently he needed to change uniforms ASAP, because he just had to go and pick the armor that was fucking personalized. This was the second bathroom he had tried since hearing who he thought might've been the maroon soldier describe his armor, but no go. Wherever people changed, it wasn't here. The few lockers he'd found unbolted held nothing but a few useless personal items.

The double chime that Grif had come to associate with a city-wide announcement got him moving again. He left the locker room as the operator's pleasantly neutral voice echoed overhead.

"Agent Washington would like to remind everyone that they should not surrender their weapons for any reason. Firearms need to be checked in and out at the armory before changing hands."

"That one's for you, Caboose," a voice said in Grif's ear. Pimp Daddy, if he had to guess.

"Also," continued the overhead voice, "If you are feeling suicidal, please refrain from using any methods that are likely to wholesale slaughter one or more of your fellow soldiers."

"Well hey," Pimp Daddy added. "I think that one's for you too."

Grif looked left and right down the hall, with just the right amount of confidence to make it look like he was checking to see if he'd spotted anyone he knew and _not_ like he needed to figure out which way seemed more promising. Waste of his time, since both halls looked exactly the same. He ended up just picking a direction, working by gut instinct.

"I have never surrendered to anything," came the reply, ignoring the second jab in favor of the first one. Grif doubted the blue soldier could process more than one insult at a time. "Not even myself."

"Yeah, except that I've actually seen you surrender to your own fucking gun. Try again, Rambo."

There was silence as Grif studied his visor's display (he'd turned it back on a couple of hallways ago but "floating map head" was just as useless as the first few times he'd tried it; no room labels, just wall outlines and the worthless ability to know exactly how many people were standing around doing jack shit at any given moment), until the blue soldier finally thought up a way to defend himself. "I would just like to point out to everyone that Tucker does not remember things very well."

Pimp Daddy scoffed. "What are you schizophrenic? We're the only ones on the radio, idiot."

That got a snort out of Grif. You wish, dickhead.

Eyeing an enormous room outlined on his HUD, Grif kept half an ear on the Abbott and Costello show (rated R for language and insensitive portrayals of mental illness) as he walked, hoping that someone more useful might come on the line. While Maroon had been good enough to point out that Grif was wearing recognizable armor, he' dropped off the radio before getting into anything else. So Grif would have to luck into his next move, which was a colossally shitty way to escape under any circumstances. Would he recognize a maintenance route when he saw one? He thought he might've been on one earlier, but—

Grif pulled up short as he stepped into what proved to be a truly cavernous room (the high ceilings looked like they might literally be carved out of rock), because hell. And. YES.

The facility's motor pool. There were vehicles parked in tight formations according to model and type (holy shit, they owned class 3 vehicles? He'd once seen a caterpillar style Ranger outside of the military compound in Pearl City, but he'd never thought he'd be lucky enough to see one up close), and driving gear, which included several suits of federal style armor. At least he assumed so; if the Rebels all painted theirs then Federal armor must be the white ones. It would make him more trackable but it was worth the risk. He'd just have to change again soon.

But that wasn't the best part. The best part was this: a mile or so down sunshine was flooding the far end of the room because the motor pool led straight out into open air.

Had he mentioned both hell and yes? Because hell YES, Grif would go ahead and just drive right out of here.

He bee-lined for the armor first, right past the few soldiers doing vehicle maintenance in a large berth to his right, and pulled one off the shelf. It fell into his arms with a louder racket than he would've liked, but Grif kept his movements sharp and confident. Nothing to see here, folks. No one came to investigate, so after giving the room one last quick look-around, he sat down and started pulling armor off his legs.

As more tan and yellow plating hit the pile of armor to his right, Grif discovered that he was shivering. By the time he was ready to remove his chest plate, he could barely get his fingers under the neck joint because his hands were shaking so badly. When Grif finally managed to peel it away, it became clear that both the armor and his skin were slick with sweat. Which meant he was officially shivering and sweating at the same time.

Shit on a STICK, he could not afford to get sick right now.

Grif slammed the new armor on himself, snapping it into place because ignoring problems without solutions was the standard go-to when you were used to surviving on credit card fraud and the lie that your mother would definitely make the _next_ parent-teacher meeting. Scout's Honor, Mrs. Needlebauer. Cooler heads fucking prevail, Mrs. Needlebauer.

After Grif paired the radio in his new helmet to the rebel one (an accidental discovery he was pretending hadn't shaken him – he'd been wondering whether getting out of the compound was going to be enough to make them give up the chase while he absently fiddled with the new helmet, and when he'd looked down he'd realized that his hands had successfully set his radio to the correct frequency without his noticing), he moved on to the next step in his plan: GTFO.

Skipping the Rangers a little regretfully, Grif passed the mechanic's berth again and leap-frogged the door on a battle jeep, its windshield pockmarked with bullet holes. Grif ducked under the barrel of the machine gun mount and wrenched the panel out from under the steering wheel with the ease of long practice, already unthreading wires from the steering column. There were a host of locking mechanisms he'd have to work around (he didn't recognize this particular setup, which would slow things a little), but that didn't worry him; if there was one thing that came to him naturally, it was cars. He wasn't exactly mechanical, but he'd yet to meet a model that he couldn't either drive, or start. You just had to know how to ask nicely. And when to jam a screwdriver into the ignition.

Grif suddenly realized that he could hear voices. He turned down the volume on his radio (the two blue soldiers were arguing about what constituted first base, and though Caboose seemed to think they were actually talking about baseball, Pimp Daddy didn't seem to care, monologuing to himself about how to break down first, second, and third bases when your girlfriend was a literal tank; Grif had no idea why that suddenly got the blue soldier back into the discussion on a more cohesive level), but otherwise kept at the wiring. To anyone else, his proximity to the soldiers working in what had to be the mechanics' station would've seemed foolhardy, but Grif needed a vehicle that wasn't locked in by the other cars around it and _,_ if anyone saw him, they'd probably just assume he had work to do as well.

(Confidence, as always, was the key: out of the many cars he had "borrowed" he'd only ever been reported for one. As long as you knew both when to steal a car (after 9 am) and return it (before 5 pm), most people never noticed in the course of their workday that their car had gone on an unauthorized fieldtrip. The one had been an old lady that had turned out to be a client, rather than an employee.)

Unfortunately, the voices were definitely getting closer. He checked his HUD, confirmed that three dots were approaching, and picked up the pace. It was one thing to be ignored by a handful of mechanics laying half buried under two ton vehicles, another to withstand the casual curiosity of passing onlookers. He pulled one of his gloves off, then started stripping wires with his thumbnail.

"…long it'll take them to get him back to normal?"

"Normal? When the fuck have any of our captains been 'normal'? Hey Katie."

Just what he needed, Grif realized, cursing internally as he saw the three dots settle around a fourth on his display. One of the mechanics had friends.

"I think he means—"

"I know what he means, Smith. He's _my_ captain. They'll get him back to normal soon enough." There was a pause, then: "Of course they'll have to find him first."

There was a derisive snort at the flatly casual statement, and then the first voice spoke again. "There's no way that rumor's true. Not a chance."

"Well _I_ heard that Captain Caboose—" for a second Grif froze (first at the mention of the blue soldier, and second because the voice was lishping hard on her 's's and though he hadn't even suspected that he might recognize the voices, Grif immediately placed Headgear) but then he resumed cutting wires with his uselessly short nails "—was instrumental in his…" She trailed off, and then tried a tentative, "Private Withers said that…" before trailing off again.

"Private Withers," came the calmest voice in the lot, speaking with just a hint of rebuke in his deep voice (well shit, that was definitely Zen Lord, and if he had to guess then the lineup concluded with Lapdog and Cynic; this just kept getting better and better), "has never worked under Captain Caboose. It is more likely that Captain Caboose—"

"Yeah, yeah. Captain Caboose this, Captain Caboose that." The voice changed position as it spoke, and there was the sound of something being picked up and dropped with a quiet clank of metal on metal. Grif had ducked as far down under the dash as he could, but he'd never been a small kid and he knew that at least his back had to be visible. Listening to one of them nonchalantly walk around the area put his teeth on edge. "C'mon, Bitters, you have to know better than anyone. Gold Team—"

"Orange Team."

"—Orange Team has the worst stats out of anyone. There's no—"

"That's not technically true," Headgear broke in. "You guys suck—uh, sorry, Antoine, not that you…anyways, you don't do very well at training exercises, and, well, out in the field I guess Orange Team also, kind of, you know…"

"Sucks?" Cynic asked blandly.

"…something like that," she agreed in a slightly ashamed tone. Grif, still trying to stay low, twisted a couple of wires together and the dashboard lit up. "So you may not often—"

"Ever," Lapdog interjected.

"— _often,_ " she repeated loyally, "successfully carry out your mission goals, but you've never lost anyone out in the field and sometimes you even accidentally manage to bring back something useful, even if it wasn't technically what you went out for. So he must be doing something right!"

Lapdog laughed. "There's a resounding endorsement.

"Lieutenant Jensen is correct," Zen Lord said. "Under Captain Grif's tutelage—"

Grif – startled at the sudden realization that they were talking about him like he was an _actual fucking space captain_ – shocked himself right in the hand. He jerked back involuntarily, with a sharp, reflexive curse, and came up face to face with three space marines, ranged around a badly scored jeep with their visors turned in his direction. The fourth stared up at him from her position on the floor.

One of them – tan with aqua trim – found his voice. "What the…what the _hell_ are you doing?"

Oh shit, he had the electrical system up and running but he'd just locked down the starter. At this point he could have the fucking key in the ignition and the jeep still wouldn't start.

Aqua trim started forward. "Come out of there you federal bastard." One of the others – tan and orange stripes – filled in the space behind him, rifle already moving business-like up to his shoulder. Grif glanced around (more desperately than he indicated with his movements, knowing the helmet kept his eyes covered) for his own weapon, but he'd left it leaning up against the storage bin where he'd hidden Suck-up's armor because damn it all he was a moron.

"Nothing to say, fucktard? Come on down here and I'll find something for you to say."

The mechanic came out from under the jeep, pushing herself to her feet. "Stop it, guys."

"This is inappropriate," Zen Lord agreed, though he too had moved into a flanking position on aqua-trim's other side. "I'm sure that Captain Caboose would not approve."

Grif was in seriously deep shit, if Captain Caboose not approving was the only thing standing between him and capture.

"Something's off," orange stripes said, and Grif finally recognized Cynic. He was taking in both Grif's gloveless hand and the brightly lit headlights, and it would only take him another few seconds to be close enough to see that there was no key in the ignition. "Who _are_ you?" he asked, and Lapdog immediately followed this up with, "Take your helmet off."

Yep, Grif was in seriously deep shit. He raked his eyes over the dashboard, trying to come up with something, _anything_ – he couldn't drive it but there was a whine next to his ear that meant the electrical circuits in the car were up and running. Lights, windshield wipers, horn (yeah, nice, maybe he could honk them into submission), radio, radar…

Headgear now had her own weapon half raised. "Do you have authorization to be here? Who—"

"It appears as though you are in violation of several protocols," Zen Lord interjected calmly. "Can you explain—"

"—is your commanding officer? We'll—"

"I still outrank you, asshole, now take the fucking helmet off and—"

Grif suddenly realized why he could hear the electricity actually running. Because he was sitting right next to the machine gun mount.

He put his hands up in the most placating manner possible while they continued to spit orders at him, stepped up onto the seat and then up over the headrest like he was going to exit the jeep from there, and then very smoothly – so smoothly, in fact, that it took them a good few seconds to realize what he had just done – sidestepped into the mount and swung the barrel around so that it was pointing in their direction.

"Change of plans," Grif said to Lapdog in the sudden silence. " _You_ take the fucking helmet off."

Nobody moved. The only sound was the few mechanics still working back in their stations (and wasn't that just a great reminder of how close he was to disaster), until Headgear asked, very hesitantly, "Captain Grif?"

"Captain" Grif – tired of getting recognized at the drop of a fucking hat – lost his patience. "Helmets off NOW."

"Huh," Cynic remarked as he took off his helmet, revealing an ultimately neutral expression as the other soldiers followed suit, "I think Captain Grif might've escaped from the hospital."

"…don't rub it in, asswipe."

With their helmets off, Grif didn't have to worry about any secret SOS calls on the radio. None of them looked all that worried by the machine gun in their faces, which annoyed him, though Headgear – and yes, she really did have headgear – had the anxious look of a mathlete who had just found out that she'd gotten an A- on her latest homework assignment. "Sir, have you considered just coming in? No one here is going to hurt you, we just want to—"

"So I'm a Captain, right?" he asked, cutting her off.

"Yes, sir."

"I'm a Captain," he repeated, swinging the mount to each of them individually, until he got either nods or yeses from all of them. If they'd been ordered to pretend he was a real Captain (he didn't know why, he didn't _care_ why, but they must've been ordered because… because no. No way. He was not some Space Captain on Neptune Five, he was Dexter Grif of Honolulu, Hawaii and the worst possible choice these idiots could have made when picking out street trash for their little science experiment. He knew who he was, and he knew that his little sister needed him, and he was going to get back because everyone always underestimated the fat kid with a knack for misdirection) then he'd be a real Captain. "So you have to do what I tell you."

Both Zen Lord and Lapdog exchanged looks, eyebrows raised, while Headgear's brow bunched straight together, hesitation clearly written on her face. Only Cynic stood steady, his arms folded and an unreadable expression on his face. "Well…" she started.

Grif wracked his brain for any and all military movies and TV shows that he had ever watched. He found the words he was looking for. "Have I been declared unfit for duty?" he asked, pointing the machine gun at aqua trim this time.

"Uh…no, sir."

He switched his aim over to Zen Lord. "So I'm still on…" he struggled with the phrase for a second, then remembered, "…active duty."

"That is correct, Captain Grif."

"So if you _don't_ do what I say," he continued, "and I report you, then it will go down as a black mark, or whatever, on your record."

"Demerit," the girl with the headgear supplied helpfully.

Grif gave her a nasty grin, forgetting momentarily that she couldn't see it. "Great. In that case I want all of you to go to different parts of the facility and then take turns telling everyone that you've seen me."

Lapdog choked, Headgear opened and closed her mouth like a fish in a tank, Zen Lord's eyebrows narrowed in slight consternation, but Cynic, of all things, suddenly and inexplicably smiled.

"What?" Grif demanded.

The soldier in orange stripes just kept grinning with that half-amused, mostly sardonic expression on his face. "You are a pain in the ass, sir." He glanced suddenly over at aqua stripes. "Hey Palomo, you takin' bets on how long it takes them to track him down?"

Lapdog seemed to consider that for a second. "Just track, or capture?"

"This is _really_ inappropriate," Headgear interrupted. "…but 'capture' _would_ be a lot more clear-cut."

"'Capture' it is," Lapdog said. "10 to 1 in the next hour, 5 to 1 in the next two, 2 to 1 in three."

"I have faith that our captains will do their job quickly and efficiently," came Zen Lord's calm voice. "Even against one of their own. Twenty on the next hour."

"Ballsy," Lapdog noted, recording it on a pad he had stored in the sheaf on one of his arms. "Jensen? Bitters?"

"Eight," Cynic said. "What are my odds on eight?"

Lapdog gave him a look. "Eight _hours_? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Headgear had turned to Cynic as well. "If he makes it that long, they'll probably have pulled the whole city in on it."

"No way," Lapdog said. "No fucking way. I'll give 100 to 1 odds on that shit."

Cynic was no longer openly smiling, his face back to its bored but serious look. "Great. Put me down for thirty-five."

"Throw it away, what do I care?" Lapdog asked, again turning to his pad. "Jens—"

"Nine," she cut in. "Nine hours. Sixty—" she was flipping through a wad of bills tucked into the storage compartment on her waist "—no, make that seventy-two."

All three of them were looking at her, either openly gob smacked or eyebrows just high enough to hint at curiosity. Cynic and Zen Lord had the look down pat. Lapdog spoke first. "You— _if he makesh it that long, they'll probably have pulled the whole shity in on it,"_ he quoted back at her in an overly done girl-voice, turning all the s's into her distinctive shpit-shtyle sh's. He went back to his normal voice. "What the fuck do you know that we d—"

" _Enough_ ," Grif interjected, trying to point the gun at them more menacingly. He'd gotten distracted by the bet talk (he wasn't sure if he was annoyed that they assumed he'd be caught, worried that they were so certain of it, or more curious as to how much money a bunch of space marineswere willing to put down on him), but he did have – sort of – a schedule to keep and this needed to end. He glanced at the vehicles behind him, wondering if he'd have time to try and hotwire another one. "Get moving."

Headgear hesitated, then said, "All of the vehicles are equipped with GPS. It's built into the radar system and ties directly back to command. There's no easy way to disable it."

Lapdog looked positively enraged. "That's cheating! You can't put money down on nine hours and then—"

"Go!" Grif snapped, both mortified and infuriated that she had seen through him. "Now!"

They stared at him for a long second, then every single one of them saluted.

Hell if he was going to play their game. "Get the fuck out of here!" he shouted without saluting them back.

Grif watched them jog away, Headgear explaining Captain Simmons' opinion on lazy assholes and the depths to which they would sink to dodge work, before she was interrupted by Cynic, wondering in a flatly casual voice exactly what Captain Grif's record was for avoiding Agent Washington. They took just a second to powwow at the door, Lapdog's expression somewhere between worried and frustrated at whatever Zen Lord – likely answering Cynic, though they were too far away at that point for Grif to hear – had said, right before he jammed his helmet back on his head. Another second and they'd split off into different directions.

Grif didn't wait around to find out if they were going to do as they were told, just picked up his gun on the way out and took the length of the room at a half-jog that lasted for five seconds. Once his head stopped spinning and he had his breath back under control, he started moving again. Apparently he'd be walking the next leg of his journey.

Zen Lord's calm voice abruptly came over the line (the only soldier that had truly worried him, since the others had money on his NOT being found quickly; hell if he could figure out what was wrong with this place), to report that Captain Grif had been spotted outside of central sleeping quarters. Grif, hoping he was moving in the opposite direction from the blue-striped soldier, crossed a hall, went around a corner, and then immediately pressed himself against the wall, ducking his head as all three soldiers on the red end of the color spectrum ran past. Deliverance passed him first, shouting out instructions on who was going to flank that worthless traitor Grif from which direction ("below" was apparently an option) while Princess Peach followed close behind, running in the most girly way imaginable. The maroon soldier brought up the rear, and Grif, watching them go, risked a glance upwards as he passed.

For a heart-stoppingly long moment he was sure Maroon was on to him. The soldier's head was turned towards him, visor following him for just a few seconds too long as he ran by, but then he was past him and the moment was gone.

By the time Cynic, Headgear, and Lapdog had announced their own sightings of Captain Grif over the radio, at five minute intervals and in wildly different places, Grif was well away and trying not to grin. Too soon. Too soon by half.

He grinned anyways. This place was fucking his.

* * *

 _This chapter was a slog. Initially I thought it was because of the first half (overpopulated scenes that devolve into chaos are fun only AFTER I'm done writing them), but then Grif didn't want to cooperate either. Things came together once I brought a machine gun into the act._

 _Expect another long delay for the next chapter. I've got a deadline for a real-world project set for October 1_ _st_ _, which will take up all of my free time. The good news is that I have 15,000 more words and the final three paragraphs of this absurdly long fanfiction already written, so I'm guaranteed to finish this story; if I want to post any of it, I have to grind through the middle bits. I'm hopeful that updates will pick up the pace as well, since I'd rather not be writing about these idiots – as much as I love them – from now until Kingdom come._

 _(Finally, credit where credit is due: that bit about stealing cars during regular workhours comes from Burn Notice – an action dramedy masquerading as a spy thriller – one of my favorite shows ever (of all time). I love genre mashups.)_


	6. Chapter 6

_Thank you for all of the story alerts and story favorites! I do notice them, and very much appreciate the support. You guys help keep me motivated!_

* * *

"His understanding of military regulation was sound," Jensen said apologetically.

The four lieutenants stood shoulder to shoulder, backs to the security booth and facing their respective captains (sans one) plus Wash, regulation stances rigid. Even Bitters stood at something that could have passed for attention, despite Gold Team's usual disregard for proper military etiquette. The clock behind their heads ticked loudly, evenly, and somehow more slowly than normal.

"Explain," Wash finally said, and every single one of them cringed.

Andersmith began what was likely a clear, well-thought-out explanation of events but Bitters, hands behind his back, cut him off. "In my defense—" he started.

"Our defense," Palomo jumped in.

"—he made a compelling argument. You never officially changed Captain Grif's status. If I—"

"We," his comrade tried again.

"—hadn't obeyed his order to report fake sightings of him throughout the city, I—"

" _WE._ "

"—would have been guilty of insubordination." There was silence for a moment, and then, just a hair too nonchalantly, Bitters added, "He _hasn't_ been declared unfit for duty, correct? Sir?"

"Well damn," Tucker said, successfully ignoring both Simmons (furiously and verbally backtracking through all the steps they'd taken upon learning about Grif's new mental state) and Caboose, who was using his fingers to count off all the people he'd run into today, starting with the bathroom guy. "His understanding of military regulation _was_ sound."

Wash, who knew perfectly well that Grif not only looked upon insubordination with indulgence but openly approved of it in his men (not to mention that Bitters only ever used "sir" when he was trying to annoy his superiors), had to stop grinding his teeth long enough to answer. "You didn't think that we would take the extenuating circumstances into account?"

Bitters shrugged. "To be brought up at my trial you mean, sir? I didn't want to risk it."

"Captain Grif," Andersmith added, voice calm enough to keep Palomo quiet, who was clearly about to agree with Bitters (which, considering Agent Washington's mood, was likely to get them all court-martialed), " _was_ rather adamant, sir. He had a machine gun pointed at us at the time."

Simmons made a strangled sound in the back of his throat but Tucker just straight up laughed – one short, involuntary "Ha!" that earned him a glare from the maroon soldier – over Caboose's openly admiring, "You too? I always listen better when someone is thinking about shooting me."

Andersmith answered him with a patently calm, if proud, "I've learned much from you, sir."

Wash finally found the words. "How, _exactly_ , did a machine gun come into it?"

Palomo jumped in with both feet. "Well, he was trying to steal a jeep and—"

Simmons' immediate demands for an explanation were nearly drowned by Tucker's order to back the fuck up, while Wash just asked for the story from the beginning in an overly calm tone of voice that meant he was _this_ close to committing homicide. Caboose, busy thinking about how good he was at listening, nodded sagely at Andersmith, who took that as his cue.

"Lieutenant Jensen had volunteered for vehicle maintenance, recognizing the need for skilled mechanics following the most recent raid by Charon's forces. Since we – Lieutenant Bitters, Lieutenant Palomo, and myself – had some downtime between training sessions, we agreed to visit—"

"Cut to the part with the machine gun in it," Tucker interjected, tired of the long-version.

"He was attempting to hotwire one of the battle jeeps," Jensen started, picking up the explanation. She paused momentarily, then added, "Well – to be accurate – at first we weren't actually sure _what_ he was up to, or even who he was, but when Lieutenant Palomo asked him what he was doing—"

"What the _hell_ he was doing," Bitters corrected blandly. When the aqua-trimmed soldier sent him what had to be a glare, Grif's lieutenant added, "If we're being accurate."

Jensen went on. "And when he didn't answer we got suspicious—"

"Which is when he called him a fucktard."

"Shut _up_ , Bitters."

"—and, uh, requested that he explain himself, but then—"

Simmons swore suddenly, which cut Jensen off instantly, unused to her captain using harsh words against her. Or, really, any words. The rest of them turned their eyes on him, but he hadn't noticed, obviously agitated, walking in a tight circle as he always did whenever he was angry with himself. "You were at the motor pool. Son of a bitch. _Son of a bitch,_ I did see him."

"You _saw_ him?" Tucker demanded. "And you…what? Pretended you hadn't?"

The maroon soldier stopped pacing. "I assumed it couldn't be him because I thought he was still two levels up from us, okay? He was in federal armor and I—" he cut himself off, taking in Tucker's body language, which was somehow conveying sarcastic interest. "Who do you think I am? Caboose?" Caboose immediately pointed out – helpfully, he might have added, if anyone had asked – that the maroon guy was the wrong shade of blue, and Simmons went ahead and ignored him. "I've worked with him for years, I actually know what Grif looks like when he's wearing a different _color_." He glanced over at the blue soldier. "And I'm a shade of red."

"Don't confuse him," Tucker said.

Wash spoke before the argument – whether regarding Simmons' ability to recognize Grif out of uniform or another foray into the world of Caboose and his inability to identify colors, he neither knew nor cared – could really take off. "At least—"

"It _pains_ me to say this," Church's voice broke in unexpectedly in their midst, "but: I told you so." They all automatically looked at Wash, the AI's second favorite walking telephone pole, and it took another couple of seconds for them to zero in on the fact that he had materialized above Simmons' shoulder instead. It was anyone's guess as to how long he'd been there. "That son of a bitch is still crafty." He glanced up at Simmons, tone still smug and arms folded. "You're in a shit-load of trouble, by the way."

"Crafty?" Tucker asked, like he must've heard wrong, but the AI ignored him, still focused on Simmons as the maroon soldier looked around the room for someone else Church might be referring to, before managing a bewildered, " _Me_?"

"Crafty," the aquamarine soldier said again. "That's the word you're going with. What, did he take up scrap-booking when I wasn't looking?

"No, the other Red Team retard in the room," Church said, continuing to ignore his teammate, though he sounded a little more irritated. "Carolina's on her way, mostly just to kill you."

"I think the nice word is 'special'," Caboose told the AI. He turned to the left, noticed that he was about to confide in Tucker, and turned to Simmons on his right instead, who may have been a red guy and clearly had a hard time thinking on his feet (he was making noise but not forming any actual sentences, which Caboose could have told him was just silly), but he was still the better choice. "That is the word my mom liked to use."

"I don't have time for this," Wash said, tone exasperated. He turned back to the lieutenants. "Dismissed."

"And I think crafty is a nice word too," the blue soldier added, turning back to Church as the Armonian soldiers snapped-to and began filing out. "Maybe he is into woodworking."

"Time for what?" the AI demanded, this time ignoring both Caboose and Tucker, who had snorted. Jensen, at the front of the line, appeared to be hesitating, holding up the lieutenants' exit. "The fact that I fucking knew it and you didn't?"

Simmons was still stuck on the news of his imminent demise. "But…but what have _I_ done? She can't be… _I_ don't deserve to _die_."

"Uh, sir?" Jensen asked her captain, voice tentative.

"Knew _what?_ " Wash demanded. "That the worst soldiers in existence – no offense, Simmons – might have trouble capturing their own teammate?"

"That's—" the maroon soldier started, but at the hesitant air of his lieutenant he forcibly turned his attention back to her. Probably to get her out of the room before Wash – or Carolina, for that matter – could completely undermine the months of work he'd put into being able to stand in front of his team while actually facing the right direction. "What is it, Jensen?"

"Go ahead and tell yourself that," the AI told the freelancer agent over Jensen explaining that she had informed Captain Grif that all of the vehicles were equipped with GPS, which she had informed him were nearly impossible to disable.

Simmons opened his mouth to either reprimand her, demand an explanation, or remember, again, that she was a girl and get tongue-tied while trying to do both as nicely as possibly, but then it struck him that Jensen had had her hands in nearly every vehicle on base, and knew exactly how to deactivate the tracking systems. He paused, so Tucker spoke instead. "Nice one."

"They're not impossible to disable," the maroon soldier told him, without looking away from his lieutenant.

"I'm aware of that, sir," Jensen answered, misreading his correction, lisp laced with nerves. "I'll admit as much to Captain Grif himself when he's…he's feeling better. But at the time I thought it would be better to keep him from using any of the vehicles to escape the city."

Palomo scoffed. "You mean you actually had a legitimate reason for cheating? So you weren't just trying to up your—"

Bitters cleared his throat suddenly and loudly and Palomo immediately lapsed into silence, which meant there was something _else_ that the lieutenants weren't sharing. Before Wash could call them on it, Church jumped back into the conversation. "See, Wash. _She_ gets it. Neatly done, Lieutenant."

Brightening visibly, Jensen saluted the AI, her three comrades following suit at a speed that seemed to correspond with the strictness of their commanding officers. Andersmith finished his with a congratulatory nod towards her, though Grif's lieutenant, hand still in the relatively correct position on his visor, was actually just checking the timer he'd set on his HUD. Six hours – give or take – and he'd be a much richer man.

Simmons, unable to help himself, had brightened as well; a compliment to his lieutenant was a compliment to him. Tucker, however, didn't give a crap. Instead he put his hand up like he was in a classroom, ignoring Palomo's extra salute (competing with an oblivious Bitters, who he thought was holding his salute) in his direction as the four of them left. "I vote we never tell him how to disable that shit. Even when he's… _feeling_ better. He's _crafty._ "

"He's _lazy_ ," Wash interjected, speaking to the AI in an extremely tight tone before Church could start in on the aquamarine soldier, like that ought to end the argument.

Church folded his arms, possibly annoyed at Wash but just as likely at Tucker. "Yeah, lazy as hell. I agree. What, you think those two things are mutually exclusive?"

"Can we get back to why Carolina is going to murder me?" Simmons asked, a little anxiously.

"I know why _I'd_ murder you," Tucker told him obligingly, over Wash's exasperated, "He's the worst captain on base, hands down."

No one could see the AI grin, let alone get annoyed, but they could hear both in his voice anyways. "And out of every captain and platoon leader on base, who holds the only record for no casualties? And I don't just mean fatalities, I mean—"

"I'd do it for the money," Caboose announced abruptly, looking at the maroon soldier.

"—whose team hasn't reported a single scratch, bruise, or hangnail from a single soldier in _any_ of their squads?"

Wash tried to object, but Simmons – very aware of the three injuries his own team had reported just this past week and suddenly wondering if maybe _that's_ why Carolina was going to kill him – beat him to it. "Because Gold Team has never seen action! Even when they're supposed to be in a combat zone, the fighting always shifts elsewhere and they end up in the back of the formation!"

Church snorted. "Right. _That's_ coincidental." Without even pausing, he switched tones. "But that's enough chit-chat, my ride's here."

Carolina strode into the room, all business, Church back on her shoulder like he'd been there the whole time. Simmons shrunk back, glancing left and right like she might stab him in the back despite the fact that he could see her right in front of him, but she just walked past him to drop a very ugly, very recognizable machine onto the security booth with a sharp clang of metal-on-metal. All four of them – Simmons, Tucker, Wash, and Caboose – cringed at the sound, probably because of the body language that went with it, but then Simmons recognized the dismantled pieces of the Dopacide Device and actually appeared to fold in on himself.

"Here's a fun fact," Carolina said mildly. They simultaneously froze at her tone and somehow physically distanced themselves from the maroon soldier without moving. "Sarge used the backup voice modulators in the abandoned robot lab to ground his little suicide machine. I'm assuming he had some reason for this—"

Simmons, unable to resist the call for a scientific explanation (even when said in _that_ sort of voice), actually started to explain the piezoelectric effect of barium titanite in conjunction with subliminal messaging, before the barest increase in Carolina's volume shut him up.

"— _BUT_ I don't actually want to know what it was. The point here is that _someone_ left it attached to a power source in Sarge's lab, and the connecting cord was enough to get the modulators resonating with the city interface system, which would explain why suicides keep randomly breaking out all over the city."

In the silence, " _someone"_ said, in a squeak of a voice, "But it was Sarge that—even though I told him—" She turned her visor on him, slowly and deliberately, and he visibly swallowed, words even smaller than they had been before. "I'm very, very sorry, ma'am."

"Also," she continued, shifting her gaze to the rest of the group, "Doc is apparently type O, which would've been great to know before he responded to my attempts to shut down the device by both trying to kill himself and murder anyone who happened to be in the same room."

Tucker, Caboose, Church, and Wash turned to look at Simmons. Simmons, who knew that Carolina had every reason in the world to be mad at him but felt absolutely no responsibility towards the purple medic whatsoever, looked back a little defiantly. "What?" he demanded, sneering way too snidely for someone who had just been verbally castigated. He always overcompensated when embarrassed.

"Don't you know everyone's blood type?" Tucker asked.

"He's _Doc_ ," Simmons pointed out, annoyed.

They all opened their mouths to protest, stopped, then let it go because the man had a point.

"Lovely," Carolina said to no one in particular. She clicked abruptly into the radio. "Dr. Grey, can you pick up Dufresne? He's got type O blood, which was somehow triggering both his suicidal and homicidal tendencies. He's tied up outside that old robot lab on level 2C."

Dr. Grey's voice went off in their ears with a riveted, " _Ooh._ " Nobody liked being left out of the conversation, and they all had a habit of flicking their radios on whenever there was the possibility that someone was going to say something interesting. Or stupid. It didn't make that much of a difference, actually. "Now _that_ is psychologically fascinating. Doc is type O, but he once explained to me that O'Malley is type B, which, as every knows, is a terrible personality matchup—"

"That…that doesn't even make sense," Simmons said.

"—but he may have just been trying to commit suicide by freelancer agent." Apparently realizing that required more of an explanation, the doctor clarified, "He shoots at you, you shoot back more quickly and accurately. Bang bang, you both get what you want!"

"Well shit," Tucker remarked in an aside to Wash. "Just when you think the day can't get any stupider."

Carolina tapped down hard on a sigh of exasperation. "Well it shouldn't be a problem anymore. We traced the source of the suicides—" Simmons shifted guiltily, "—and it's been taken care of. He's likely to be on the more…unstable end of his personality today—"

"Surprise, surprise," Tucker said. "Unstable lunatics are unstable."

"—but I doubt he – or anyone else – will try again. Can you send someone to pick him up?"

"I'd _love_ to!" Dr. Grey exclaimed promptly, tone both genuine and genuinely cheery, "but no can do. I've got a couple thousand wrists to stitch up – not to mention that half of Green Team has got a very bad case of bloody diarrhea – so it'll have to wait."

Tucker choked. "Wait, what?"

"Speaking of which," she continued, "Can anyone explain to me why half of Green Team is showing symptoms of mercury poisoning?"

Before anyone could hazard so much as a guess (though Caboose had started off on a promising, "I think that is the planet that is friends with Uranus, so maybe—") Sarge's voice joined the line. "I knew those Oreo Truffles were going to be a big hit. Donut! Triple the batch after all!"

"Oh, I'm always ready to triple your batch, sir!"

There was the under-the-breath grumble of Yosemite Sam style cussing, but the federal doctor just took it all in stride. "Ah!" she said. "Thank you. That would explain it."

"Why the _fuck_ would you poison Green Team?" Tucker snapped.

"Unfortunately," Sarge replied in a voice that did not convey the "un" part of "unfortunately," "there's always collateral damage in war. My people learned long ago that…" the heartfelt, if rambling, monologue about the South and her tragic past continued unabated, but Simmons clicked momentarily off the line so that he could lean over to Tucker to say, " _Oreo_ treats," in a pointed way, before clicking right back on again.

"And what—oh," Tucker realized. Right. Oreos. And they'd set up the bake sale right outside the training hall, which his guys had left not that long ago. They really were just collateral damage. The aquamarine soldier clicked back into the channel as well, and promptly interrupted the song of the South. "Don't give me that shit, 'your people' are from fucking Denmark. How do I know? You forgot your letter from the Genealogist Society in the trash, so I happen to know that they didn't move to Kentucky until—"

"Lies! Dirty Blue lies! I—"

Entirely misreading the atmosphere, Dr. Grey cut off what was proving to be an enormously satisfying argument, to reassure Tucker of his team's welfare. "No need to worry! My stores of activated charcoal are a little low, but I've always wanted to try my hand at aggressive gastric lavages." There was an audible disturbance in what was either the force or just the background noise her helmet mic could pick up, as if a bunch of soldiers had suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced (they had; Dr. Grey was in the waiting room and Green Team was up next). The federal doctor followed it up with a verbal thumbs-up. "I'm all set to go!"

"You know what?" Tucker said. "I'm so relieved. I'm so relieved, in fact, that I'm going to take time out of my day to go and talk to Sarge about his family history."

"And so is Wash," Carolina ordered unexpectedly, over Sarge's insistence that he could trace his family tree all the way back to Adam and Eve, who were also, apparently, born and raised Kentuckians.

Wash, looking alarmed, started off his protest with a very unpromising, "But—!"

"Make sure he doesn't poison anyone else," she said, sounding tired. "Sorry, Wash."

"And keep your eyes peeled for Grif," Tucker added. "He's fucking crafty, that one, he'll—"

"Oh shut up, jackass," Church snapped, while Simmons just put his head down and wished that this day could be over.

* * *

About the time that one of his captors finally remembered to have the PA announce that Captain Grif (and seriously, who did they think they were still kidding at this point?) was officially unfit for duty, Grif found Dessert's unstable lunatic, face down on the floor with his ankles bound to his wrists and all four limbs bent backwards over his rear.

Grif hadn't actually been looking for him (frankly, he didn't want to find anything other than the exit) but he'd seen the purple armor from down the hall and assumed he'd stumbled upon that super nice-slash-helpful guy doing yoga on the floor. May as well ask for directions. By the time Purple flipped him off with both hands and called him a warthog-faced buffoon, Grif had gotten close enough to see that he was tied in that position, which meant there were two purple guys at the facility – one of whom was insane. A good reminder not to get cocky, just because he'd managed to work some good luck to his advantage.

"You know," someone said in his ear. "It takes a very special kind of person to come up with a plan this… _astounding_. And you know what they say about 'special.'"

"It's the nice word for retard," Caboose explained in a stage whisper.

Grif turned down the volume on his radio (they were just arguing about the bake sale trap again; he'd actually seen a few of the signs – "BAKE SALE AT 2! BE THERE OR BE A BROWNIE SQUARE!" – written in glitter pen and yeah fucking right) and crouched down in front of the cursing soldier, trying to make eye contact. Or visor contact, whatever. "Tell me how to get out and I'll untie you."

"Out?" the soldier demanded. " _OUT?_ I'll tell you how to get out: by the river Styx, when I finally kill you all HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Right," Grif said, standing up and turning to walk away.

"Wait wait wait wait!" the purple guy demanded in a much milder – if panicked – tone. Startled, Grif turned back to look at him, but whatever he had done to his voice was gone again, and Grif could hear the sneer when Purple said, "Oh I'm sorry, did I hurt your tender little feelings? I'd hate to make you cry. It probably smells like bacon grease."

"Is that your way of telling me you've reconsidered my offer?" Grif asked, not even remotely insulted. There wasn't a fat-joke in the world that could get under his skin; too many fat cells in the way.

"Out of what?" Purple demanded, which was a "yes."

"Out of _here_ ," Grif said. "This building. Facility. Whatever you call this place, where's the exit?"

The soldier paused; Grif froze, afraid he'd made a mistake. His question had either tipped this guy off as to who he was, or he'd tripped some sort of wire in the loon's psyche that was about to set off the claymore in his head. Grif opened his mouth to say something, turn off the countdown on whatever ticking time bomb he'd just initiated, but he could think of nothing, which did not say great things about his own mental state. Damn it all, he'd been thinking fine an hour ago.

Purple guy rolled his head to the side a little, like he was trying to get a better look at Grif's face, despite the fact that they were both wearing helmets. When he spoke, his tone was disturbingly thoughtful. "You _are_ off today."

"Off what?" Grif demanded, covering his uncertainty with bravado. "My meds? Oh wait, that sounds more like your type of problem."

He cursed himself immediately. Let cooler heads prevail, you moron. Mouthing off wasn't worth it.

Fortunately, Purple just tsked, which was an odd thing to see coming from a guy in the bow position. "Well that wasn't very nice!" And there was that mild voice again, almost familiar, like Grif had heard it before. "I mean, I guess I understand why you'd say it…" but before Grif could place it, the soldier ratcheted up his tone again into I-am-a- crook -in-an-old-Batman-episode mode "…but mind your own business, you boob! You'll notice I haven't asked why you're wearing Federal armor – if you thought white was slimming, then it's only fair to tell you that you look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man – nor have I—"

"Fine," Grif cut him off. "I'm sorry. You're so right. I'm off. Where is the exit?"

The soldier paused for a very, very long moment. What the hell had Grif said wrong _now_? He was blowing it, and he could not afford to blow it.

Purple spoke at last, in a tone just as thoughtful as before. "What if I told you to go straight, turn left at the intersection, then go through the double doors on the right?"

"If that's the exit," Grif answered, wondering if this was some sort of game you had to play when you were off your tits, "then I'd thank you and let you go. If it wasn't, then…" Words failed him. He could do nothing but take a raging lunatic at his word.

"Well _THIS_ is interesting," Purple said, wide grin audible in his voice. Oh yeah, that was a great sign. "It's DEFINITELY the exit. You'll find some—" he had to pause momentarily, busy chuckling "—tools to help you escape. Just aim them at your head. Fastest—" laughter "—fastest way out of—" he started to lose control of himself "—here, guaranteed!" And then he let rip with the most villainous laugh Grif had heard yet.

This guy must be fun at parties. There was a 99.9% chance those directions were worthless, but Grif had nothing else to try and, though desperation always made him more cynical, it also made him more hopeful. He'd either catch that 0.1% chance for a lucky break, or he wouldn't.

"In that case: thank you," he said flatly. For a moment Grif hesitated over Purple's zip ties, unsure what to do (he wasn't above breaking his promises, particularly since he was sure he'd just been fed a heaping pile of BS) but if there was one thing a homicidal maniac could do, it was cause a distraction. Let the good times roll. "You have anything besides your head shoved up your ass?" he asked. These ties wouldn't break easily. "Guys like you store shivs in dark places, right?"

"And blubber guts like you eat your weight in—"

"Okay," Grif said, putting his hands up and stepping away. "You just lost your privileges."

Purple shouted at him all the way down the hall, but quite frankly any distraction Grif got from this guy was just as likely to blow back on him. Not worth the risk. And okay, yeah, the fat jokes had kind of started to piss him off. Just because you were used to something didn't mean you had to put up with it, especially when given a choice.

Grif turned up the volume on the radio as he walked, keeping an eye on the foot traffic – almost nothing in this part of the facility, which was just as well considering all the racket the purple guy had been making – and an ear on the idiots in his helmet.

"—the last time, I have not been recruited into the Annual Grif Bait Bake Sale."

"At least you've finally got the name right!"

Without the context, it was hard to figure out who was speaking, or why. Plunging into one of these conversations felt a little like waking up with vomit on your shirt and your sister wailing at you to get up get up get up _please_ get up, after drinking punch you hadn't known was spiked at a party you couldn't remember your mother throwing. Mom had gotten drunk enough to think that posting vids was a good idea, and Grif had ended up spending a very long afternoon at their local CPS agency, explaining that it had been a joke over and over again until they gave up.

"Okay, seriously: why is it annual?"

Two voices spoke over each other, one a short, "And why is that the only thing that bothers you about it?" and the other a long and clearly frustrated diatribe on poison and why checking for it didn't count as recruitment into Sarge's absurd little plan.

"Don't be bitter!" Deliverance's voice. That was one voice that could be picked out of the pack. "Little is as little does. And a little man shows how little he is by his words. Like when he uses the word 'little' to describe someone else's infallible strategy. Isn't that right, Simmons?"

By the time the voice staved off this attack ("I'm only going to ask you once, nicely: stop using the word 'little.'") and restarted his speech, Grif was almost sure that was Nice Guy.

Someone laughed, a short, derisive sound. "What, don't you like the way Red Team operates?"

The voice that answered wasn't Nice Guy's, though Grif heard the embarrassment loud and clear. "At least we're better than the Blues! Who actually succeeded in erasing them from existence? Who always comes to _us_ for help? Who—"

"I would like to help." Caboose volunteered. Grif may have had a hard telling his captors apart (their voices were distinctive but not _that_ distinctive; not all at once and all together like this), but Caboose, like Deliverance, was a special case. Mostly because he talked like he was on high doses of antihistamine. "I have very good ideas for—"

"You. Are. Off. The. Search. Party."

"Aww," chirped an overly peppy voice. "Be nice, Simmons. He just wants to help! He's found Grif _twice_ today."

"He's found Grif _once_. He's _lost_ him twice."

"I think you are confused," Caboose protested. "That guy in the bathroom—"

"He's still got nothing on our lieutenants," one of the voices from earlier pointed out. The one that always argued with Caboose. Pimp Daddy, he thought. "I think that technically wasted more of your time than Caboose did." There was a pause, then: "I'm pretty sure they started a betting pool. But hey! They also technically got Grif to show up for his shift on time."

"What?" embarrassed guy asked.

Ah right, the gamblers. That had actually been the most fun Grif had had all day, listening to these assholes try to figure out how he could be in up to fifteen places at once (because Cynic, for all that the guy had the cool fuck-all attitude that Grif looked up to, took his orders – or at least his bet – seriously; he had recruited a bunch of guys calling themselves the "orange team" to report Grif-sightings every ten seconds or so).

"And here I thought you were the one guy around here who notices when people show up on time. Grif was actually at the motor pool only an hour after he's supposed to start maintenance inspections. Which, for him, is basically early."

Embarrassed guy didn't sound embarrassed anymore. As his voice leveled out and he started asking Pimp Daddy if he was sure (really sure?), Grif recognized the neurotic cadence of the maroon soldier's tone. Maroon was the guy he called…wait, that's right, he hadn't come up with a name yet. Just names that didn't quite fit. Dr. Venture, Spock, Egon, Percy, Navi, Legolas (What do your elf eyes see, you dickless—

"Hold on," Maroon said, inadvertently cutting off Grif's thoughts. "Let me see if I've got this straight: Grif was first seen outside…"

But whoever the hell he was, Grif decided as he listened to the maroon soldier accurately breakdown his escape attempt thus far to the half hour, he was seriously staring to piss him off. Grif had thought Deliverance was going to be a better roadblock for this guy's thinking. Fortunately, the runaround with the gamblers had left a significant hole in his timeline, which the soldier was going to be hard-pressed to fill.

"You need a hobby," the hologram said.

Grif recognized its voice instantly – in large part because it scared him in a way that none of these others did; where they couldn't touch him, a program designed to operate on a communication system _could_ – but he let the words wash over him, because he'd made it to the double doors. Which was probably not the way out.

Still, they were large, which was promising, and ominous, which was not, but that was likely due to the fact that Grif had been directed here by a crazy person. Before he could talk himself out of checking inside, just to make sure, he pushed open the right door and took a quick look at his surroundings.

Self-trained to spot any adult at any time, in any situation, the first thing Grif noticed was the man behind the counter. When it didn't move he realized that it was a robot, painted brown and motionless in a way that no human being ever was. Robots could be trouble, but they could also be worked around once you understood their parameters. Robots didn't operate outside their programming.

Instead of worrying about it, Grif simply took in the rest of the room, letting the door close behind him as Maroon kept running through all the locations Grif had been seen, like some sort of pattern would jump out at him and explain where Grif was. Well, Grif was in the armory. There were crates marked "explosive," full body armor hung in racks against the wall, and shelves on shelves of guns stored above—

Oh c'mon. "Aim them at your head" for the fastest way out of here. This whole thing had been an overly convoluted "kill yourself" joke.

Officially not even remotely sorry that he had left Purple guy strung up in a deserted hallway (he already hadn't been sorry but now he got to feel justified, which was even better), Grif hung back at the door for a second, before his brain kick started and he remembered that loitering uncertainly was one of the more suspicious things he could do. In or out.

"Shut up, Simmons," someone said in his ear, cutting off the maroon soldier, whose sudden lapse into silence made Grif feel a little more cheerful about his chances. "Just draw the damn flow-chart, I'm not your stenographer." The doors may not have led to the exit, but there was something else in here that Grif could use: armor. He had his pick of tan uniforms, which were presumably harder to track and thus removed much of his concern about the hologram. That and his captors knew he was in the white federal armor, so it was about for him to switch colors anyways.

Grif walked over to the racks, armor hung in neat rows, and jerked one off its stabilizing hook. He looked over his shoulder but no one had entered and the robot – standing stock still at the counter – still hadn't moved, so Grif started undressing. He removed his helmet first, turned the volume up as high as it could go, then set it upside down on the floor. The marines' voices were tinny and far away, but they were audible. He'd worry about figuring out the frequency on his new helmet in a couple of minutes. He turned around to get to work on his shoulder clasps, glancing automatically at the robot, and finally noticed that it had turned its head to watch him.

Grif froze. "Uh," he said. He looked down at the armor at his feet and decided there was no getting around it. "I'm going to borrow this, okay?"

For a moment the robot said nothing. Then it lifted a steady hand to its ear piece, there was the whine of a line connecting to the radio channel in the helmet sitting like a bowl on the floor, and it started speaking, of all things, Spanish.

[I have found the fat red one.]

Momentarily put off by the incomprehensible words, but encouraged by the fact that it still hadn't made a move in his direction, Grif started up work on the clasps again, taking the Spanish as either a, "Yes, you may borrow my armor" or a, "I don't care enough to make you stop." He worked faster though, because it had to have had a reason why it dialed out to a bunch of marines involved in what was proving to be the most ineffective kidnapping ring since Home Alone 7.

"Well hey, Lopez!" came the jaunty reply from his helmet. Crap, that's right, Princess Peach was their translator. Grif picked up the pace, dropping white armored pieces to the ground as quickly as possible. "I'm doing great! How are you?"

[I am going to repeat myself very slowly. I…HAVE…FOUND…GRIF.]

"Really? Well I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you haven't been too lonely. Lopez has been lonely, you guys, and he really needs to get a grip."

[He appears to be listening in on your conversation.]

"You've been listening to the radio? You know, that's a great way to cheer up when you're by yourself. I'm proud of you, Lopez."

[That would help explain why he keeps escaping.]

"Oh, no need to thank me. I enjoy helping in any way that I can."

The armory, Grif was annoyed to realize as Princess Peach continued translating what had to be the most insipid conversation that had existed across space-time, was fucking freezing. They had the air conditioning blasting on full, like a hotel lobby in the middle of summer, which he'd never liked.

[Also, I think it is important to note that his current temperature is 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and appears to be climbing.]

Grif worked from the bottom up as the pink guy explained to the almost certainly uninterested crowd – if their silence was anything to go by – that Lopez had had an idea for brightening up the armory using an array of sun catchers. Grif was shivering hard, but the sooner he got the armor back on, the sooner he'd warm up.

[It has increased by 0.1 degrees since entering this room.]

"No, no, I don't think it's over the top at all! What a great idea!"

[If you do not do something about it, his brain will start melting out his ears.]

"I suppose it might be distracting, but there are much worse things than having an armory that's bound to brighten _anyone's_ day."

Grif, becoming increasingly aware that the robot had not looked away from him since he started changing, struggled to connect the pieces of the breastplate together, missing the catches in his haste. He took a second to breathe, waiting to start feeling warmer and reminding himself to calm down.

[I am not concerned, of course. Just informing you idiots.]

"Well, we should always be careful with our hurtful words. Sticks and stones, Lopez. Sticks and stones."

There was a sigh – an actual sigh – and then: [Perhaps I should try connecting you to someone who actually understands me.]

Immediately there was the inexplicable whine of another line joining the channel (unprepared for the sudden noise, Grif, who had both helmets side-by-side in his lap as he tried to figure out how to pair them, nearly dropped one), and then insane purple guy – and yeah, that was another voice that Grif would now and always recognize instantly – demanded, "Who—what is this? Is this—you fools! So you need me after all!"

[Please explain to these idiots that—]

Someone jumped into the conversation, cutting off the robot. "Get the fuck out of the neutral zone, you know you're not allowed on here."

"Well I know something that you don't know," Purple retorted, tone gloating. "Someone in your little Apple Dumpling Gang is acting very—"

There was an audible click, purple guy's voice disappeared from the line, and someone else asked, "Who let him on here?"

"Hell if I know. Donut, tell Lopez to shut up or get to the point, none of us understands Spanish."

[How did my life come to this?]

"You're so right, Lopez. Life _is_ good, isn't it? But, uh, lo siento, Lopezo, but…"

The monologue continued on, and though Grif could not have said why, somewhere between staring down at the absurdly cheerful if apologetic voice now coming from both helmets, then looking back up again at the robot, Grif suddenly grasped that it was not the fruitcake Princess Peach had been making it out to be.

"You're not actually saying any of these things, are you?" Grif asked.

[That is the first intelligent thing you have ever said to me.]

"Shit," he realized, pausing over the last couple of loose straps on his legs. "You know who I am, don't you?"

[Yes, fatso. GRIF is here] the robot replied, and yeah, that was not the best sign in the world when the only two Spanish words he knew – "Si" and his own name – showed up in the same sentence. [I am looking right at Grif. Grif is sitting here, changing armor. If you want Grif now, you should come capture Grif now. Because Grif is clearly about to leave. It paused, and then added, in a very slow, deliberate voice, GRRIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.]

"GRIF _is_ having a hard time of it today, isn't he?" the pink guy agreed in his ear. "Yes, poor Grif. Poor Grif Grif Grif Grif – GRIIIFFFFFFF."

Before Grif could decide if this constituted an emergency (as far as he could tell there was still only one person in the world who knew that the robot was onto him, and that was himself), the maroon soldier cut back into the conversation. "I know where he is."

Grif started. No one came swooping down on his ass, so he finished tightening the last few straps on, speeding through the process as Maroon continued. "I made a flow-chart—"

"Nerd."

"-and he's—"

"Best of luck to you."

There was a pause – Grif too fell still in the silence, waiting to find out what Maroon had to say, heart hammering in his throat – but then the soldier just said, "Fine. I'll be right back. With Grif."

Time to go. If Maroon knew where he was then Grif would have to not be here. He stood hastily, new helmet in his hand and old helmet (still echoing with his captor's voices) skittering away across the floor. He had to catch himself on the rack as blood rushed straight out of his head and into his feet.

"I've gotta get out of here," Grif told the robot as soon as he had his balance back. Which was a stupid thing to say to a robot who probably knew you were an escapee in their little experimental station. Instead of bidding the robot any more pointless farewells, he jammed the helmet onto his head, turned left and right, momentarily confused, then headed for the door.

[It is too bad you are going to die now that you've said one intelligent thing. You probably should have saved it for a better occasion.] the robot called out after him.

Not paying any particular attention to where he was headed, Grif kept moving until he started to run into people. Crowds made for great hiding. By the time he noticed that he was in line for the cafeteria, it was too late to change his mind about where he was going, but he wouldn't have changed it anyways. It wasn't as busy as he would've liked (must've missed the lunch rush), but he was still more likely to blend in.

He was sitting at a table, his captors still talking shit to each other in his helmet, adrenaline finally fading, staring down at his tray of food and grasping the fact that he couldn't eat it without taking his helmet off (which was okay, since he wasn't hungry; which was not okay _because he wasn't hungry_ – it was the closest thing a Grif had to a siren when it came to their personal health), when the maroon soldier rushed right through the entrance and started feverishly scanning the room.

Shit. _Shit_. How could he possibly have known to look here? Grif hadn't even known he was going to be here. _Go away_ , he thought, trying to keep his breathing under control. Well that was one good thing about full body armor. Practically impossible to see how anyone was breathing in these things. Grif turned the volume down on his radio, needing to focus. Now just go away, no one's here, no one's hiding in this room, don't worry he won't recognize my armor, it's completely new armor, there's no way…

Abruptly, Maroon stopped looking anxious, settled back onto his heels like the most carefree individual in the world, and then started making an overly nonchalant beeline in Grif's direction.

Grif froze. Maroon couldn't know. He couldn't. Grif was wearing completely different armor, he was—he was acting suspicious, Grif realized, then promptly put his head down like he was concentrating on his food. He started digging his fork through his tray, separating the chow into neat little piles because he needed to look like he was doing _something_ , and for some reason Sesame Street, of all things, popped into his head. One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong, can you tell which fat kid in the room full of corrupt space marines is not like the others, by the time I finish my song?

When he looked up, Maroon was dropping right into the seat in front of him.

"Hi," the soldier said.

Bert, Grif suddenly decided, forcing himself to focus on something else – anything else – besides the feel of his pulse in the side of his neck, finally taking a good long look at his captor. He didn't know where the hell Ernie was, but this was clearly Bert: tall, thin, floppy-looking arms with the sculpted musculature of a Muppet. If anyone was an anal retentive puppet with a paper clip collection, this guy was.

Grif put up a quick hand in reply – how are ya, Bert, nice to meet you – and cursed himself with every single swear word on the books because he should have run the moment the maroon soldier had started making that stupidly obvious play to catch him off his guard.

"Nice day," Maroon tried again. The soldier started feeling around the neck joint of his helmet and Grif looked down, focusing on his food like he had something better to do than make small talk.

"Yeah," he answered, not-so-absently digging furrows into his lasagna. Maybe he could still talk himself out of this. It was the only play he had left. "You know, I really should get going. I've got PT with Agent Washington after this," he tried, regurgitating some of the things he'd heard from the soldiers around him, complaining their way through the food line. "I really shouldn't—"

The soldier finished releasing the clasps under his chin and finally removed his helmet, cutting him off. "C'mon, Grif. Don't you remember me?"

Grif hadn't seen any of them without their helmets on, so that didn't exactly help (though he was apparently some sort of cyborg; Grif had been born only a few years after the Hawaiian insurgency so he'd seen his fair share around the old neighborhoods, but still, if that wasn't a sign that he was on the sideshow road tour for mad science, nothing was), but the guy so obviously wanted him to remember that Grif thought back, wracking his brains for the name that went with the maroon armor and wishing he'd paid more attention. He was stuck on Bert now, but it wasn't Bert, it was something else, something lame, something…something…Tim, no, starts with an "S"—

He remembered suddenly. "Simmons."

The maroon soldier's face cleared, his sincere look of relief startling Grif. But Grif knew better than anyone that a kind expression meant jack shit when push came to shove. Instead he pressed his advantage, removing his own helmet as though the soldier's soft words were affecting him. He kept a tight grip on it under the table. "I think something's wrong with me."

Bingo. The maroon soldier let his guard down completely, leaning forward as he started to say, "We'll get you—"

But whatever he was going to get him, Grif got him first. He swung the helmet as hard as he could and hit maroon guy full in the face, knocking him sideways onto the floor.

Grif didn't wait to see how long it took the soldier – or the rest of the stunned cafeteria, everyone staring but otherwise frozen with today's lunch special halfway to their mouths – to recover. He shoved the helmet back on his head and barreled between tables, knocking trays and food onto the floor as soldiers tripped backwards out of his way. He went through two startled privates just entering the cafeteria, taking the empty hall at a run, but he was walking sedately by time another group of soldiers came around the corner. Because Grif was more than a match against a lucky guess and some dipstick with all the mettle and foresight of a Muppet.

* * *

 _I went with the [I am speaking Spanish] style of indicating an untranslated foreign language in writing. Am I lazy? Very. And Spanish class with Senor Bob was a very long time ago. Fortunately, my indolence does have boundaries – I didn't go with the placeholder I had originally written for Lopez's conversation (when this chapter was still just notes), which simply went:_

blah blah insulting blah

 _But that aside: my apologies for the long delay! Chapters 5, 6, and 7 should be the hardest grind I've got to trudge through for this story. When everyone's motivations and conversations occur both all over the place and at the same time, I do a lot of rewrites to make sure that no one gets lost. It's an annoyingly time-consuming process, and I'm the kind of writer that avoids time-consuming writing by not writing it for as long as possible._

 _Still, the very grand hope is that my speed will soon begin to improve. Wish me luck!_

 _(And thank you for your patience. In all seriousness, I am sorry for the frustratingly long wait.)_


	7. Chapter 7

_Augh, I suck. Here's the shorthand list of my excuses, in chronological order: Community Theater, sick over Christmas, and the annual Steam Winter Sale. In more promising news, I have nearly 16,000 unposted words just waiting for me to get a move on, because I keep plugging away at the backend of this story when I should be writing the middle. There's nothing like putting off the present for the future._

* * *

Simmons sat on a chair in HQ, helmet on the floor next to his feet, head tilted back, and Kleenex stuffed up his nose. The rest of them, having been pulled from what was turning out to be a surprisingly successful bake sale, watched with the general air of people who had just decided that this was officially a pain in the ass.

"Well," Simmons said, taking tissue out of one of his nostrils as he straightened. He looked at it for a second, frowning with pointed but resigned disgust at the blood. He was already sporting what promised to be a truly magnificent black eye. "His memories are definitely still intact. He was sitting in his usual spot in the mess hall. I doubt he even realized it."

"Hmm," Sarge said. Abruptly, he snapped his fingers at Donut and declared, "We'll take the motor pool. The rest of you numb nuts take the loop between the mess hall, the armory, and Private Withers' vegetable garden."

"Wait," Wash said as they left. "I just missed something. Why are we going to a garden? There's nothing there."

Carolina spoke suddenly, like something had just dawned on her. "You think he's moving around by habit."

"Grif has really consistent routines," Simmons explained, taking the tissue out of his other nostril. "Get up. Eat. Hide in nap spot A. Hear someone coming. Hide in nap spot B. Eat. Move on to nap spot C. Eat. Call it a day. He may think he has no idea where he is, but I think his subconscious is following his usual route without him even realizing it."

Made sense to Wash. And he suddenly knew where Grif disappeared to when he couldn't find him for training.

"It might be a good idea to have someone walking his route too," the maroon soldier added.

"Sounds good," Carolina interjected before Tucker could get rolling on another round of this-is-your-fault-Red-Team-not-ours. Time to make this a little more official. "Here's my call: Wash, start in the mess hall. Tucker, armory. Simmons…" she paused, taking in his face again, and Simmons said to her unspoken question, "I'm fine."

"Garden," she finished.

"Flower," Caboose put in before anyone could start protesting their locations (i.e. Tucker, who was hungry after physical training). When that didn't garner an immediate response he went on. "Chicken. Food time. Nap time."

"We're not playing Word Association, Caboose," Church said, recognizing the issue.

" _Awake_ time," the blue soldier amended.

"…or Disassociation."

"I'm assigning places to look for Grif," Carolina explained, taking pity on him. Caboose turned to her, hand already half-raised to ask a question, and she clarified: "The orange guy."

"The one orange guy, or the other orange guy?"

"I got this," Church said to his freelancer. He turned to Caboose. "All of the above."

"Ooh," he said, tone very interested. "I am very good at hide and seek. Especially the hiding. And seeking." His hand, which had gone down for a second, went up again. "Who wants to be my buddy?"

"Not it," Tucker said immediately, putting a hand up to where his nose was hidden under his visor. Church, recognizing a policy he had instituted ages ago (first, that Caboose was required to follow the buddy system any time they "played" (went on) a "game" (actual military assignment), and second, that "nose goes" was absolute), followed suit, virtual hand on virtual helmet.

"NO," Simmons said before Wash – who had yet to learn all of Blue Team's unspoken rules but recognized when Caboose was about to be foisted on him, _again_ – could put a hand up to his own nose. "Also: HELL NO."

"You know," Church observed over Caboose's attempts to explain just how _good_ he was at finding things that were hiding, "if I've been paying attention—" which I _obviously_ have, he didn't add, because he could already tell that his overly innocent tone had triggered Simmons' self-defense subroutines, which already made this a win for him "—it's two v. two for both you and Caboose on how many times you've let him escape."

" _What_?!" Simmons squawked. "It's _one_ v. two—I mean—piss up a rope, Tucker—" to the aquamarine soldier's pointed laughter "—at least I figured out where he was, and if the rest of you had listened to me—anyways, almost getting a _skull fracture_ still only counts as one—"

"You saw him outside the motor pool earlier," Tucker pointed out, grinning at the maroon soldier under his helmet. Church may have annoyed the crap out of him most days, but hell if they couldn't follow each other's thought patterns, "and ignored him. So that's two."

"THAT IS NOT—"

"Okay," Carolina said, word easy but tone pointed enough to get them to stop. "I think we've established the count here—"

"We haven't established anything! You haven't even given me the chance to present my case—"

"—so get going," she finished, ignoring Simmons again, who sunk into a silence that was both annoyed and hurt. "Switch positions every fifteen minutes." She hid a sigh, taking in the maroon soldier's body language and familiar enough with him at this point to know that the thought that his count was officially as high as Caboose's would keep him up every night for the next six months, and added, "I'll put it into the report as one v. two," even though she wasn't planning on writing a report. No need to tell him that.

Simmons brightened, then promptly faltered, realizing that he was still going into a report as a failure.

"And you'll be…where?" Wash asked his fellow agent pointedly, looking at her like he already knew she wasn't in.

"Busy with something else," she answered, refusing to feel guilty for having an actual job that didn't involve fixing Red and Blue idiocy.

"Not rewarding your fuckups with real help," Church clarified.

Simmons' ire flared. "This isn't my—"

"Dopacide Device," Carolina interjected, pleasantly.

Tucker laughed as they followed the – once again defeated – maroon soldier out the door, Simmons' head positively pointed at the floor in his attempts to not look at the teal armored agent, and said to Wash, "I bet I get Grif before you do."

"I am not betting on this," Wash said.

"Oh c'mon," the aquamarine soldier retorted. "This'll be a piece of cake."

Only Wash looked back at Church, glance sharp, as the AI laughed, and the freelancer had to wonder what exactly was so funny.

* * *

All of a sudden, the red and blue soldiers were fucking _everywhere_.

Grif stood in a recess along the wall with the air of someone who was taking a smoke break, watching the red soldier talk strategy with the pink one. He had no cigarettes on hand to complete the farce – or even just to calm his nerves, which had spiked right about the time that the red and blue soldiers started, you know, _showing up_ _fucking everywhere_ – but as he had the attitude right the only looks he had received were a few casual "hey man" nods from random passing soldiers. He stood with casual indifference, and not a soul looking at him would have suspected that he felt like a wrung-out piece of toast.

He tamped down on his shivers, which were threatening to show on his body armor, pretending that it didn't worry him that nobody else around here looked cold. If he didn't acknowledge the fact that he felt like shit, then the feeling would go away; the official Dexter Grif I-Don't-Have-Time-To-Deal-With-This-Shitmodel of healthcare. It had worked for him in the past, it would now.

Besides, he had a few other things to deal with at the moment. Like the fact that every path he had tried had a red or blue soldier on it. Fortunately, he always had warnings about where they'd be. Grif was tired, and down to his last sprint – afraid, in fact, that he might not have any left in him, should an emergency arise – but he was still one step ahead of these jackasses.

"A Grif in the hand is worth two in the bush!" Deliverance proclaimed. Grif shouldn't have been able to hear the red soldier from where he was standing, but the marine was on the radio, certain that everyone would benefit from a rundown of his tactical genius. As he had explained in a previous strategy meeting. "Simmons," he ordered, "once he finally shows his sorry hide, flank him from the East. Donut—"

"Uh," came Bert's voice, "I'm outside the armory. It'll take me ten minutes to get there."

"But _I'm_ close by, hiding," the blue soldier's voice volunteered.

Neither of these facts moved the red megalomaniac in the slightest. "Obviously," he answered the maroon soldier, "you will be participating in spirit today. Donut, flank Grif from the West while I descend on him like the glorious ghosts of my fallen brethren."

"From the South then, sir?" Princess Peach asked.

"Always from the South!"

Grif had no idea what the hell this flanking maneuver could possibly look like and decided, as he rested his head back against the wall with his eyes closed (fighting down the shivers that did not exist), that he was actually a little sorry that he wasn't going to find out.

"I am available for seeking," Caboose clarified. "I will even give you clues: there's lots of mean ladies here with—"

"Mess hall," Pimp Daddy jumped in, then over Caboose's disappointed _aww_ , "This is ridiculous. We've been at this for an hour and no one's seen him. Your brilliant—"

Sensing an insult, Maroon quickly put in, "My theory is—"

"—wrong."

"— _sound_."

"Clearly," someone Grif thought might be Nice Guy added, tone neutral, so it was impossible to tell exactly which soldier he was answering.

Pimp Daddy snorted. "I've got a ten riding on this, Simmons. You better be sure."

"For the last time," came Nice Guy's voice again, now exasperated, "this is not a competition!"

"You're just saying that in case you lose."

"Fine," Bert snapped. He dialed it back a second later. "I agree that he's getting around us somehow—"

"I never said that," Pimp Daddy pointed out.

"—SO," a pause to cool himself down again, and then, "let's widen our net." There was no sudden whine, just a couple of hard clicks back-to-back, but Grif had had an ear on this channel long enough to recognize the sound of two radios joining the line. A grumble from Deliverance followed – a half-heard mutter that managed to insult the color blue, the stench of pacifism, and the "I" in team – but the maroon soldier simply said, "I think we need to have more people on the loop." There was a pause, as if Bert had hesitated, then, "We could use your help."

What loop, Grif didn't know. The radio was a serious boon to his situation, but it left significant holes in some of the context when they confabbed in person.

"Oh, do you need _our_ help?" the hologram's voice demanded in a pointedly mocking way, but the voice that followed up directly afterwards ("I'd be _happy_ to help!") didn't immediately ring any bells with Grif.

"Thanks, Doc," Bert said in a voice that did not entirely convey gratitude. "Could you—"

"Though I'll need someone to come this direction first and untie me!"

Grif, who had realized that he _did_ recognize that voice (but couldn't quite place where), had no idea why some guy they had called for help would need to be untied. Still, while the thought of adding people to the search party had his heart pounding a little more insistently in his chest— _calm down, calm down, cooler heads prevail_ —this guy seemed like a promising addition. His voice had the cadence of the dork in loser table hell, desperately hoping the popular kids would finally let him join their group during lunch.

"In fact, I can't entirely feel my legs anymore."

"For the love of—who was supposed to go take care of that?"

Everyone on the radio volunteered a name, and guileless voice added, "Or my hands. Really, I'm a bit numb from my elbows down."

"Well, somebody go untie him."

"Oh," the voice added, as though something had just occurred to him, "but before I go on, first things first: Grif, I wanted to apologize for the way I spoke to you earlier. Suicide is a very serious issue and should not be used as joke material. I'm very sorry for my hurtful words."

Grif's throat went dry.

"The fuck?" Pimp Daddy demanded. "What the hell are you doing?"

Oh shit, Grif did know this guy. He was the super nice guy that had given him the radio frequency. He didn't remember him joking about suicide, but…don't say it don't say it don't say it…

"Apologizing," super-helpful guy explained. "I said some very rude and inappropriate things to Grif when I saw him earlier. Actually, before that even, after I gave him the radio frequency for his new armor. So do you accept my apology? Grif?"

There was silence for a moment.

"Son of a bitch," Nice Guy finally said.

"Well I'm out," Grif told them, and turned off the radio completely.

He was suddenly suffocatingly hot in his armor. From down the hall he heard Deliverance explode with the most long-winded curse in existence as Princess Peach tried to calm him down, the tone of his words soothing but otherwise unintelligible, and Grif slipped quietly back and away.

* * *

"I admit," Doc remarked, once it was clear that Sarge was done (the medic not as hurt he might've been, considering that most of the insult had involved Grif's involvement in what Doc had just realized was a serious case of amnesia; the red soldier's longer insults often included extremely helpful background), "Grif _has_ seemed a little off today."

"Oh," Simmons said in a manically bright _I'm-going-to-kill-you_ voice, "did he really?"

"Yes," Doc agreed. "It would've been nice to know that we've been trying to capture him."

As his tone was neither accusatory – simply observational, like it really _would_ have been nice to know – nor technically incorrect, Simmons deflated a little.

"Hey," Tucker said, watching Caboose as the blue soldier placed a few of his team members behind the potted plants ranged around the central courtyard. "Why didn't you take him over?"

There was a pause as people tried to figure out who he was talking to, then Church said, "Huh. I guess I missed that window, didn't I?"

Wash, recognizing the extremely smug tenor to the words, almost groaned. Sarge just started with, "You dirty blue—" but Simmons, discovering a new target for his ire, cut him off.

"I know how fast your fucking processors run, answer the question you—"

The AI cut him off. "And have we all learned a valuable lesson about listening to people smarter than ourselves?" he asked.

"What?" Simmons demanded.

"Well it was just _luck_ ," Church continued in an insultingly bright voice. "So I figured: best of luck underestimating him."

Tucker let out a disbelieving scoff.

"You knew," Carolina realized suddenly, staring up at the AI, practically preening himself on the central screen in HQ. He'd been in the computer system, checking through every subroutine the city had to make sure no one had messed with anything in the wake of this afternoon's "incidences." "You knew he was listening in on us."

"First of all," Church said, speaking to the group in general as though he were defending himself against them and not his increasingly hostile partner, "there's no way I could've known for certain. This is an _open channel_. Do you have any idea how many people on this base listen to your guys' shit when there's nothing else to do? I think Doc's the only who _doesn't_ break into this line when he's bored."

"I'd never!" Doc agreed.

"You suspected," Carolina amended, no question in her voice.

Church ignored her. "Secondly, I'm a little backed up with work, and kind of tied down at the moment." This, the agent knew, was true, though since a part of him remained connected to the Neutral Zone (great, now _she_ was using their stupid names for their radio frequencies; it really _was_ Stockholm Syndrome) it was hard to tell for certain how much it would've slowed him down.

"And third…" he paused, and nobody knew how but you could absolutely tell that he was smirking, "yeah. I think _crafty_ is the word I'm going with."

"Has anyone pointed out lately that you're a dick?" Tucker asked, but Carolina ignored the aquamarine soldier, speaking in a very carefully controlled tone of voice. "Epsilon, if this was your way of throwing a hissy fit because nobody would…no, you know what? This _was_ your way of throwing a hissy fit. Please grow up."

"You _are_ very small," Caboose agreed, no longer busy directing his troops where to hide. Now to find them.

" _Rude_ ," Donut remarked. "There was no need to point _that_ out."

"You are helping us fix this," Carolina told the AI, who was trying to decide if the pink soldier had just insulted his manhood. " _I_ am going to help fix this. Everybody's in officially, because this has gone on long enough."

"Bet's still on," Tucker said immediately, and over Wash's "For the last time _this is not something that you bet on_ ," Church said, "You're on."

"Let's get him, boys and girls," he added, and to Carolina's absolute un-surprise, the threat of losing this pissing contest got every single one of them enthusiastically back on track.

* * *

The next half hour in Grif's life quickly went from bad to worse.

Losing the radio was worse than he'd thought. Pimp Daddy had ambushed him from behind, though unprepared for the fact that Grif could move when it mattered, the aquamarine soldier lost him after one corridor. Grif had threaded his way into the middle of a column of soldiers and went right back around the corner he'd just turned, marching with them past Pimp Daddy, who ran on without bothering to look left. Next came Princess Peach – in the middle of a two-man flanking maneuver – who fell for Grif's fainting spell and abandoned his part of the flank to try and Florence Nightingale his ass. Grif stood up fast enough to hit the pink soldier under the chin and knock him backwards, and Deliverance was too far away to do anything but call him a dirty Blue, which did not seem like the worst insult he could've picked. Then a run-in with Nice Guy, and finally Grif had been lucky enough to see Bert before the maroon soldier saw _him_ , and backed out the way he'd come.

Nice Guy had actually been his closest shave, on two counts. The grey soldier had pretended that he didn't recognize their captive (who played along like sir, yessir, I can definitely come back to HQ and "help you with something"), in an attempt to trick Grif into getting on the facility's elevated train with him rather than using force. It had ended with Nice Guy inside the 'L' and Grif outside of it, waving at him standing incredulously in the window as the train sped away.

The second count was Grif's near heart attack, when he turned to leave and realized that the blue idiot was standing next to his shoulder, waving too. Once the train was out of sight, Caboose had finally caught Grif's look and said, "Oh. I am off the search party. I do not need to find _you._ Have you seen any blue-striped people around here?"

A "that way," got rid of him. Grif may have been holding steady, but he knew he was one bad turn of luck, or twist of the knee, or poorly-made, knee-jerk decision away from disaster. He had no idea how they kept sneaking up on him.

The fact was he needed to hole up. Find a quiet spot where he could figure out his next move, get a lay of the land, and get some fucking sleep.

He was exhausted. He was exhausted and sick (not sick, he reminded himself, just sick of the constant volley of asshole marines out to capture and/or kill him) and about one ambush away from getting caught.

The hiding spot he finally found was brilliant. He discovered it entirely by accident, dodging a room that Bert – nearly running into him _again_ – had just entered and instead following a group of marines into a cavernous gym. He'd walked the perimeter and found a ladder leading up into black space, set back behind a partition that hid a space stacked with storage crates. Unafraid of heights and realizing that he couldn't be seen by the exercising soldiers, Grif climbed up for a look.

Once he made it – after sitting for a moment to breathe himself calm again, a few dizzy spells on the way up having shaken him – Grif saw that the ceiling was threaded with poorly lit catwalks, like someone had started working on the roof and had never completed the job. They were disconnected, many of them bridged by long flat boards of some cheap kind of wood.

And not even bridged all that well. He tapped one with his foot before getting on, knocking it just slightly askew, and saw that they were unsecured. Grif used it anyways (because what else was he supposed to do?), crossing over dead space towards the blackest corner of the ceiling. Below, soldiers were shout-singing marching songs at each other and he glanced down, watching them run the outskirts of the gym. If anyone looked up they'd spot Grif in an instant.

Fortunately, people never looked up. Besides, as long as he wasn't moving the shadows should swallow him pretty well. That was something else he had learned over the years. Your hiding spot didn't need to be great, you just had to stay still. Like T-Rexes (and as long as you didn't look entirely like a human-shaped object on first glance), don't move and people usually couldn't see you.

Grif got to the end of a plywood bridge, one step away from metal catwalk, but something – either a small sound, or something out of the corner of his eye, or just that sixth sense that meant _turn the fuck around_ _right now_ – made him whirl.

Dessert stood ten feet away, just shy of the plank that separated her catwalk from his, the hologram on her shoulder a bright glow in the gloom.

Grif's stomach left a yawning maw in his middle as it dropped into his feet. It was over. He couldn't even think of the curse words he wanted because none of them were strong enough to overcome the eight-year-old in his head that was screaming that he had backed himself into a corner again _(please don't, please don't, don't…)_ and why oh why couldn't he ever _learn_ that you should always have a back way out of your hiding spots?

"Damn," the hologram said. "Your hearing's better than I thought."

Grif looked behind him but he already knew there was nowhere to run.

"See," the hologram continued as the teal soldier stepped onto the bridge. She was moving cautiously, almost gently, and the board didn't so much as budge. "I knew that as soon as we started looking seriously, we'd have you."

She took another step, and the cheap wood didn't give an inch. Grif realized that his weight was keeping it securely in place. The stray thought that she probably had no idea how loose the boards actually were crossed his mind.

"All we had to do was wait," it went on, tone oozing smug superiority. "This is your nap backup when the rest of your usual spots are out. Even Simmons doesn't know about it because he doesn't think you'd go anywhere near PT. I, however, am an omnisciently magnificent SOB who likes to keep tabs on everyone, just because I fucking can."

They were a few steps onto the bridge now, Grif keeping one eye on the hologram and the other on the woman's weapon, and the suddenly pointed thought that Dessert and her evil little Shih Tzu of a program _probably had no idea how loose the boards actually were_ came back around and hit Grif between the eyes.

Hope – fierce, reckless hope – struck him.

Dessert said, "I think it's time you come with us," and the hologram followed up with, "What, nothing to say? Don't think I'm stupid enough to—"

"Calculate the entirety of pi," Grif cut in, hoping to distract the program using the Captain Kirk method of defeating a supercomputer.

"What?" it asked.

Grif threw a little Aperture Science at him, watching Dessert take a few more steps forward. "This statement is false. New mission: refuse this mission. Does a set of all sets contain itself?"

The hologram, responding to Grif's cheap attempts to shut it down with a paradox, sneered, "I'm an AI, you tool, I'm not—"

"And yeah," Grif cut him off, because it and the teal armored marine were finally right in the middle of the board and at least three feet from the catwalks on either side, "I'm a little fat."

He stepped off the plywood as he said it, onto solid metal, and simultaneously kicked the board forward with his heel. It hit the catwalk edge, held for a second, but in lunging forward – understanding way too late the position Grif had put them in – the woman dislodged it entirely, sending it plunging downwards.

She went with it.

Dessert didn't scream as she fell. Only the hologram made a sound, a desperate "NO!" that followed them down, down, down through empty space and towards the unforgiving floor.

Grif didn't watch. Marching tunes cut themselves off soon enough for him to hear her hit the ground with a sick crunch of a bag of meat hitting an immovable object. A chorus of shocked screams punctuated the sound, and he grinned in fierce triumph.

He felt good. He felt powerful. He felt, in fact, wide awake now and ready for round two with his heart pounding the feeling back into his chest and his head and oh fucking hell he felt sick from his throat to his navel because for all that she'd had it coming, he'd just killed a woman.

Grif finally looked down, opening his mouth, and his words choked on adrenaline. He got his breath back in another second. "I tried to talk her down!" he yelled down to the faces now looking up at him. He could just see Dessert through the crowd around her, and stopped looking.

"Fucking Sarge!" someone yelled back, and it took nothing at all to use another plank to re-bridge the gap and slip away in the chaos.

* * *

 _For some strange reason, all of Grif's pop culture references are the same as mine. Apparently he watched the same shows I did growing up, despite the century difference. How inadvertently convenient for me._

 _Next chapter will go up much faster than this last one, but that's not saying much considering the break between chapters six and seven was an embarrassing three months. I've actually been pretty busy with my original projects (I have a website and am two-thirds of the way through writing and posting a long short story about an idiot with superpowers and his older brother, which has been eating up the time I don't spend procrastinating), but FatKids has officially been added to my project calendar and chapter 8 will be up in February._

 _A few final character notes: Caboose associates chickens with flowers because he's under the impression that that's what they eat. Also, he thinks the mess hall is populated entirely by mean ladies because everyone in the back wears aprons and hairnets._

 _And lastly Church. Church may act like a dick – and he is – but he also keeps tabs on the Reds and Blues because he wants to make sure that he knows where everyone is in the case of an emergency._


	8. Chapter 8

Somehow, between the cycle of near-captures and repeated failures, almost everyone had wound up back at HQ. Wash was missing, as was Carolina and Church, but the rest of them stood around the monitors "planning" their next move. Or so they'd said when Kimball had asked, before she'd gone back to work cleaning up the city after the morning's "incidences."

She had every reason not to believe them. Simmons, for example, was watching the short video of Tucker trying to body slam Grif and then immediately rebounding as the (formerly) orange soldier dashed around the corner. It was a hypnotically short set of actions – run at, jump on, bounce off – that was somehow funnier by the fiftieth repeat than it had been on the first. The maroon soldier was laughing so hard it didn't sound like laughter anymore, more like the noise a miniature poodle might make while choking to death. In another few loops he wouldn't be able to breathe anymore.

"Shut up, asshole," Tucker said, annoyed.

"Heh," Sarge laughed, and the aquamarine soldier knew that the red sergeant was watching the video loop on his own visor, "this is going to follow you until you die, dirt bag."

Tucker knew it too. Church had put together the GIF half an hour ago, and it was already making the rounds among both federal and rebel soldiers. Instead of agreeing – or pointing out that Red Team was late to the party, per usual – he just snapped, "You're one to talk. How is it that he 'escaped your clutches' again?"

"I've got this one, Sarge," Donut volunteered, apparently unaware that "the universe's second most incompetent soldier" that Sarge had begun describing was him, "We thought—" there was a growl from the red sergeant that the pink soldier blithely missed "—that he required medical assistance."

"Stop falling for his fainting spells," Simmons suggested as Wash quietly slipped into HQ, like he didn't want anyone to notice him.

Caboose spoke suddenly, because he'd finally finished considering what had been bothering him. "I think he _lied_ to me," he decided in regards to the orange guy, because absolutely none of his blue friends had been "that way."

Tucker noticed the agent. "Where have you been?" the aquamarine soldier demanded over Simmons' annoyed, "Is it better or worse to have you on the search party?"

"You know," Wash answered vaguely, "took the long way around."

"If he's off," the maroon soldier continued, talking mostly to himself, "he'll find Grif and never tell us. If he's on he'll probably never find him. Only he'll somehow make things worse for us anyways and…he just, he doesn't _deserve_ to be on."

"Wait a minute," Tucker realized, taking in Wash's pointed attempts not to look at any of them. "Did Grif actually—"

The freelancer cut him off. "I don't actually want to talk about it."

This prematurely ended the discussion about whether Caboose was on or off the search, and started another howling round of laughter at the agent's expense, who pretended he couldn't hear their demands for details. The ribbing devolved into a five-way argument that could be boiled down to _you-suck-ass-worse-than-I-do,_ and by the time Donut somehow made the premise legitimately uncomfortable, they'd come to the general consensus that, however else the rest of them were ranked, Grif was currently on the top of the list.

"Still," Tucker admitted, "I do feel kind of bad for him. He has _no_ idea how recognizable he is. The second he opens his mouth…" he snorted. "Shit, _I_ even recognize his walk. He's gotta think we're fucking magic at this point."

Caboose gasped, then said in a scandalized voice, "I _knew_ —"

"Quiet," Wash cut in, voice sharp. He was listening to something on his radio, back to them and shoulders tense, and that shut them up like nothing else could.

"It's Carolina," he finally said, turning to face them. "Thirty foot fall onto hard concrete. They've just taken her to medical."

It was strange how they sometimes simultaneously came to the same decision. It didn't happen often, but when it did, it happened without a word. The six of them didn't full out run, but they moved fast as a single – if very sloppy – unit, towards the medical wing. Both federal and rebel soldiers, catching something in their pace (or possibly just the sight of Sarge with his shotgun leveled like he was prepared to blow away anyone who didn't move out of the way fast enough), immediately pressed themselves to the walls as they jogged past.

Simmons finally broke the silence. "Grif didn't…?"

"Yeah," Wash said shortly. "He did."

* * *

"She was lucky," Dr. Grey explained cheerfully. "If she'd landed on her bad leg that would've been the end of her career."

"Her military career?" Tucker asked.

Dr. Grey gave him a close-but-no-cigar thumbs up. "Any career that involved walking."

Carolina cleared her throat quietly but pointedly, before they could decide to get really appalled on her behalf. "I know how to handle a fall," she said. The healing unit was humming with that soft purring noise that meant it was doing its job, recovery field glowing around her legs. "Luck had nothing to do with it." She smiled just enough to let her boys know that they could trust her to know what she was doing. "I had enough time to remember to control the roll using my good leg."

"You were lucky and you _know_ it," Church snapped. "That piece of shit is fucking dead."

The AI was in a rare mood – or not so much "rare" as "heightened" – as angry as he could get without having the programming-version of an aneurism. Tucker, standing behind Red Team (who'd crowded the bed, not apologizing for their teammate so much in words as in proximity; Carolina was hoping they wouldn't accidentally smother her), fingered her lower leg guards, almost playing with them. The doctors had stripped them from her legs and they lay on an empty medibed, intact but spider-webbed like safety glass. He'd known the material was designed to give way before the legs in them did, but they could withstand an immense amount of pressure and he'd never actually seen it himself. It must've made a hell of a sound when it shattered.

Wash, however, knew from experience exactly the kind of pressure and torsion it took to fracture armor like this. Grif had done his level best to kill her. His jaw clenched, fingers knuckling in his gloves, because Grif had gotten a whole hell of a lot closer than he should have.

"This just stopped being a competition," he said. It said something about how angry they all were that no one jumped in to point out that Wash had finally admitted that it _had_ been a competition. "I don't care how you get him to come in, this ends now. You do whatever—"

"Wash," Carolina interjected. She glanced at Simmons. "He's scared."

"Aww," Dr. Grey immediately added, tone sympathetic. "Poor thing."

"Well boo-fuckin-hoo," Church snapped before the agent – or the maroon soldier, standing about three feet away from her bed with his arms folded, like he couldn't decide whether he ought to be angry, guilty that he had failed to bring in his teammate before now, or concerned – could figure out how to respond to this. "He'd better be. If he thinks he can just get away with—"

"Epsilon," Carolina cut in firmly. "I'm fine." She looked again at her fellow freelancer. "Be careful when you back him into a corner. You remember Jackernack."

Sarge started in on a threatening speech ("Write this down, Simmons," he ordered. "Memo: the three things I am going to do to Private Grif when…"), Donut started explaining to Caboose – watching curiously – what you should do when you feel scared using the kind of language and tone adopted by Sesame Street, but Wash rubbed the back of his neck momentarily before dropping his hand with a sigh. "Okay, okay," he conceded. "I get it."

Tucker looked between the two of them. "Why the fuck should we care if—"

"Desperation," Wash cut him off. "I've – we've – fought the best soldiers in the known universe, but one of the worst fights we ever had was against this colony on some little Podunk planet called Jackernack. Bunch of farmers, and it was one of the ugliest fights we ever had trying to clear them out." When both Reds and Blues looked like they expected more, he clarified. "When you fight professionals there's a sort of etiquette to it. You usually know where a hired soldier will draw the line."

"Nine to Fivers," Carolina recalled, smiling almost distantly. The recovery field shut off suddenly and she started rolling her ankles, testing them. "That's what York – one of the other Freelancer agents – used to call them."

"Right," Wash said, pretending he hadn't just been shocked – and pleased – at the easy way she'd brought up their old friend. He hadn't known that she could. "When you've got a quitting time, you usually know when to quit."

"Oh good," Caboose said, "So we're not done playing then? I will go get my binoculars."

"NO," Simmons snapped, but Sarge overturned his objection by pointing out that the blue soldier's "help" was bound to eventually lead to Grif's demise, especially if they temporarily replaced Freckles with his original weapon.

"Oh yeah," Tucker agreed, "that doesn't seem like something that'll bite us in the ass."

"Let's have a vote," Donut suggested brightly, hand shooting up. "All in favor—"

"I'll help too," Doc chimed in from behind him.

They started, whipping around to take in the purple medic, sitting on the edge of a medibed and massaging his own arm.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Tucker demanded.

Doc's voice actually sounded hurt when he answered. "I've been here the whole time." When that didn't garner a response he added, "You said 'Hi' to me when you came in."

Before they could figure out which insensitive asshole had accidentally gotten Doc's hopes up, Dr. Grey explained, "Maroon team found him on the way to volleyball. We've been trying to get the circulation back in his limbs."

Doc gave her the thumbs up. "And now I can practically feel my toes again!"

"That's…great," Wash finished lamely. He knew someone was supposed to have gone and untied the medic earlier, but right now he couldn't remember who that was. The freelancer paused, then added, "And Dr. Grey, if you're not too busy, could you also help us look for Grif? Your perspective might be helpful.

"Oh," she said, "Uh…I am. Very busy that is. And I've got some money riding on…you know what? Just ask me again in two hours."

"Why is it that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself?" Church demanded, still seething with anger, and jumped to the HQ computers where he could make shit happen directly.

* * *

The adrenaline didn't last a quarter as long as Grif had needed it to. He was leaning against the cool bulkhead, fighting off the urge to just sit down on the row of chairs against the wall – he was back in the elevated train lobby, hell if he knew how he'd found it again – and fading fast. For the moment he was alone, but he knew he needed to stand up straight and keep moving, because he could not afford to have anybody else come around this corner and ask him what was wrong. He'd pushed off the marine (a female soldier with a deceptively kind voice; but they wouldn't get him that way, no sir, no way) with a louder "I'm fine" than he was feeling, but he couldn't afford to let it happen again.

The PA sounded suddenly and loudly overhead (he was starting to hate that double chime), announcing a citywide alert, which was immediately followed up by the cool voice of the announcer ordering all personnel to turn on their radios. Before Grif could decide how bad that was for him, the voice of the hologram broke into the PA, words bouncing sharply off the walls.

"You hear that, Grif?" it snapped. "I'm officially over this shit. Turn on your fucking radio or else."

So about an eleven then, on a scale of one to oh-shit-I'm-toast. And for him, that was saying something.

 _Calm down,_ Grif told himself, trying to level his breathing. _Calm down. Let cooler heads prevail._

Unfortunately, he was fast losing the ability to ignore the fact that he was seriously starting to lose it. There was something legitimately wrong with him. He couldn't think, but he needed to think. Let cooler heads prevail. He had to get out of the city. If he could get out of the city, he could figure out where he was. He could walk home if he had to. Kai needed him.

"Everybody's got five seconds to turn on their radios," the AI's voice went on overhead as Grif reminded himself, again, that cooler heads prevailed, "or this is going to really fucking hurt."

Grif missed it, still trying to calm his thoughts into order, so he was entirely unprepared when the radio screamed into his ear – a long, sharp whine that went straight to his ear drums. Automatically he tried to yank the helmet off his head without undoing the clasps, but then his hands somehow found them and he released the catches with his thumbs, helmet hitting the floor and skittering off and away before he realized that the AI had just forcibly turned on every radio in the facility.

Grif hit the wall, turning to find – oh crap, what was it…that's right, his helmet, he'd need his helmet – confused by the ringing in his ears and wondering if he should just leave it and get going, but which way

Grif blinked. Looked at the floor between his knees. Blinked again, disoriented. Why was he sitting in one of the lobby chairs?

"Good thing I saw you when I did," a voice said from right next to him. "I couldn't catch you but I was able to direct your fall into the chair. You know, you really _should_ consider losing some weight." Grif looked over at the purple soldier, who shook his head at him, gesture and voice both absurdly nice. "It isn't healthy."

Grif remembered his gun suddenly, tried to grab it, and simultaneously discovered that it had fallen to the floor when he'd momentarily passed out.

"No, no," the purple guy said, hands up and empty, understanding what he'd been going for. Well, at least he wasn't that insane guy. "No weapons, no nothing. If you want to run I can't stop you. Look, I'll just—" his sudden movement almost made Grif try and bean him to the floor and make a run for it, but before he could make a move – shit if his head really wasn't running slow – Purple had removed his helmet and set it on the seat next to him. His smile was genuinely warm, like he practiced smiling in a way that was both reassuring and sympathetic in the mirror every night before bed. Hell if it didn't annoy Grif on sight.

Grif must've made another move because the purple soldier's smile slid farther into the "reassuring" end of the spectrum. "See?" he said, gesturing to the helmet next to his leg. "No radio. I just want to talk to you."

Still slightly dizzy, Grif realized he needed a little time before he was ready to move. "Talk then."

Purple looked pleased. "Thanks! By the way," he said, putting out a hand, introducing himself. "I'm Frank Dufresne, one of the medics here. You can call me Dufresne. Nobody else does, but you're welcome to."

Grif didn't take his hand, and a moment later the soldier put it down, unperturbed. "Medic?" Grif demanded. Only it sounded more like a real question, either weak or hopeful. He licked his lips, trying to muster his anger. "You really expect me to believe that? Since the moment I woke up in this shit-hole you guys have been trying to kill me."

"Oh!" Super Helpful Guy said, genuinely surprised. He frowned, thinking. "You know, I can see why you'd think that. We're not the nicest people in the universe." Which was rich, coming from this guy. "But I swear," Purple added suddenly, hand on his heart, "we wouldn't do anything like that to you. You're a very dear friend—" what a darling way to put it; pull the other one, idiot "—and we want to get you back so we can help you get better. I'm sorry this is so confusing for you. Nobody's really tried to explain anything, have they? No wonder you're scared."

Scared _nothing_. Purple could blow it out his super helpful pie-hole. "You don't know me," Grif snapped. "You don't…besides, I killed that woman, there's no way…"

But the medic was smiling at him. "Don't worry. Carolina has taken much harder hits than that. You haven't killed anyone."

Oh good, they were immortal. Grif wasn't sure whether to believe Purple – his tone was openly honest, but how could Grif know if—there wasn't any way to be sure…beside, he was not going to feel relieved just because some evil soldier chick had survived and he wasn't a murderer after all.

Grif realized that Purple was studying him, that concerned frown back on his face. "What?" he snapped, but it sounded tired to his own ears.

The medic patted something hanging from his belt. "May I use this device to check your temperature?"

Easy answer. "No."

After a second of visible – if understated – floundering, Purple reached his hand out, clearly intending to touch Grif's forehead, and tried, "Well, can I just—"

"FUCK NO."

He backed off immediately, hands up once more. "Okay, okay," he conceded. "I won't do anything you don't like, but you don't look good." Grif nodded thankfully, unaware he was doing it, eyes closed as he felt heat start to creep back up his face. Oh yay, time for the hourly temperature shift. "I'm ethically opposed to forcing anyone into anything so I won't _make_ you come in, but… _please_ , Grif." Grif suddenly felt the medic place a hand on his shoulder. "I _promise_ , nothing bad will happen to you if you do. I—I don't know how else to convince you. I just want you to feel well again."

Grif didn't like it. Kai was the only person in the world allowed to invade his personal space without so much as a by-your-leave, but she was an exception for a lot of reasons. None of which this guy had. But Grif was tired; tired of running, tired of his thoughts going around every impossible loop again and again; tired of not being able to think; tired of feeling shaky and exhausted and hot and then cold and then hot and cold and…

"There's no way I'd believe you," Grif told him, realizing, to his exhausted annoyance, that he wanted to.

"Oh c'mon, buddy," Doc said soothingly. He began rubbing him on the back, like an adult trying to get a little kid to stop crying over a spilled juice box, and Grif would've told him to back off if it hadn't felt so bizarrely reassuring. "What do you say? Come in and we'll figure out what's wrong with you. We'll get your memories back – I know, you don't believe the memory thing, but we'll get them back anyways – and everything will be okay."

He was right. Grif didn't believe the memory thing. But still, nothing they could do could make him worse than he felt now, right? So he would let them take care of whatever was causing this stupid fever and then get back to escaping, because right now he could barely focus, let alone find his way back to fucking Hawaii. So for now…

"Yeah," Grif agreed, nodding his head. He realized he was bent over his lap with his elbows on his knees, eyes closed, but he just couldn't muster up the shits he needed to give to get himself out of such a vulnerable position. Even with the medic's hand now working the back of his neck, fingers massaging the pressure points at the base of his skull. If anyone saw this…but right now Grif just couldn't find it in himself to give a damn. "Sure. Let's go back."

The doctor's fingers stilled, somehow conveying a non-verbal "good choice," and then, without warning, clamped down on his exposed neck.

Grif froze.

"You'll just come in, will you?" came the other purple guy's voice. No. No no no no no no no there was only one purple guy on base. Only one guy in this facility wore purple – not two, but one – because of course the only seemingly normal guy in this facility was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "You'll give in that easily. Wonderful."

Grif opened his eyes, vision stuck on his lap, and tried to jerk his head upwards and out of Hyde's grasp. Hyde smashed his face into his knees.

"You fool!" he continued. Grif, eyes watering from his nose impacting the hard alloid, jerked upwards again, trying to release his arms, but they were pinned between his body and his legs and Hyde had position on him and was leaning, full weight, onto the top of his spine. "You vast waste of space, I know you aren't genetically predisposed towards endurance, but this is pathetic, even–" Grif nearly got an arm loose but, faster than he would've expected from the formerly guileless doctor, Hyde had his wrist in his other hand, bending it far enough backwards to have Grif gasping into his lap "—for you."

Bent deep enough to send the ache in his lower back shooting up to his neck, Grif half-panted, half-snarled, "What the hell—what the _fuck_ did they do to you?"

"Do to me? I am perfect the way I am! Perfect! Except for that fool pacifist who sometimes interrupts my private conversations, but even he has his own uses." Hyde suddenly – inexplicably – released Grif. "Ta ta."

In one sudden, staggering movement Grif stood and tried to back away, but the back of his knees hit a chair, nearly sending him to the floor. He caught himself on the bulkhead and in another few seconds had his balance back, standing frozen with his hand on the wall. He stared down at Purple, sitting with his fingers steepled in his lap like some sort of Bond villain.

Grif eyed the rifle, lying on the floor next to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Seeing where he was looking Hyde tsked him twice, mockingly. He put a foot on the weapon and dragged it under him. "I don't think so. Be a good boy and run along."

"They experimented on you too," Grif said, voice breaking on the accusation.

"You blithering idiot, they experimented on _all_ of us. But while the rest of you found out that you were _nothing_ – which I could have told them, if any of them had bothered to _ask_ – that pathetic purple fool was lucky enough to get me out of the bargain. I am the me I was always meant to be, and someday you will all recognize my—!" apparently realizing that he had lost Grif, Hyde changed tacks "—but enough about me and my evil plans—" oh hell, this whacko actually called them "evil" himself, what the…what in…just what was _wrong_ with this place? "—because I'm tired of being this close to you. You smell like a baboon. A _wet_ baboon. Goodbye now."

Still mentally reeling, Grif could only stare.

"Bye bye," Hyde tried again, trying to gesture him away with a wave of his hand, like a King releasing his subject.

Much to his own surprise, Grif's jaw tightened, his hands clenched, and he realized that he was pissed. Pissed off and unsure if he was shaking because he was sick or because he was just that fucking mad.

"As much as I hate to admit it," he started, voice a low, tightly controlled murmur that only Kai would have recognized as _shit-is-about-to-hit-the-fan_ , "I have no fucking clue where I am. I've got nothing. I need to get out of here and I need to find—" he remembered, suddenly, that no one was supposed to know that he cared about his sister, and went with "—my clothes and my wallet and whatever else of mine you've stolen, but first you need to make me fucking well because I can't take care—I can't fucking _think_ straight, but people back home are going to start wondering where—"

Hyde stood abruptly, knocking the rifle further under the chairs. Grif could see the fury – didn't understand it, didn't give a crap – but when Purple spoke it was with a distinct sneer, rather than a snarl. "Stop embarrassing yourself. If you never went back, there's no one who would miss you."

"Kai—" he started, forgetting his decision not to bring her up.

"Your sister wouldn't even notice you were gone," Hyde cut him off. "Tell me, you surprisingly sentimental buffoon: how much does she really need you? How much will she _really_ miss having someone to rain on her otherwise happy-get-lucky parade?"

Grif faltered. "Of course she—yeah, she doesn't like it when I tell her what to—but what the fuck does she know, she's fourteen she needs someone to—"

Hyde threw his head back and actually villain laughed. It was a stupid, infuriating sound, and Grif felt helpless against it. "You need her to need you. Mommy left and the little boy was so sad and lonely that he needed someone to take care of so that he wouldn't notice that no one was taking care of _him_."

Grif opened his mouth, but not a word came out.

"How long will it take until she finds someone elseto take care of her? One day? Two, you say?" Hyde picked up Grif's helmet, rolling it from hand to hand with a nastily satisfied smile on his face. "My money's somewhere between five and six _hours_ , the women in your family don't stay lonely for long."

Grif suddenly fell backwards over the leg of a chair, unaware until that moment that he'd been backpedaling. He scrambled on the floor, not sure if he was trying to block his ears or simply push himself back up on his feet, but the purple psychopath wasn't done.

Hyde simultaneously spoke and chucked the helmet, which hit Grif's arm, held up in front of his face, and glanced off to the right. "Run home, little boy," he said, laughter in his voice. "Run home and pretend that your sister isn't already turning into your mother. Pretend that you'll finish high school and that you won't be stuck in the same rut that traps every Grif in the same pitiful existence, generation after generation after sad, pathetic, self-destructive little generation. Pretend that you don't know the Grifs have always come from trash, and they always return to it. So run, run, run, you half-priced econo-tub of animal grease. No one will ever run after you. At least your mother taught you that."

Grif managed to get his feet under him, grappling on a chair for a second to keep himself from re-hitting his knees, and then did the only thing he could think of:

Ran.

Vision swirling, head throbbing in time with every hard step and pounding heartbeat, out of breath but still running, past soldiers he didn't bother to dodge or even look at, but by then he was in the cafeteria again because he couldn't seem to stop going to the same fucking places over and over and over like his life was some kind of never-ending Ferris Wheel with no Exit.

It was empty, save for a couple of privates playing what looked like Indian poker over in the far corner, but they didn't so much as glance at him as he came up short, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do next. Grif stood for a moment, surveying the neat rows of tables gleaming white in the harsh, overhead lighting, but there was still that pounding need driving him on and he was moving forward, moving _away_ , moving without knowing what he was moving towards until he spotted the door in the back of the kitchens, which was at least one fucking way he hadn't tried yet.

It was cool. Cool and dark and filled with shelves of frozen food, but even though there wasn't a way through ( _freezer_ , his brain supplied; _c'mon you idiot, keep it together, what other kind of door would be in the back of a kitchen?_ ) it was good enough. Grif strode forward, stripping off armor as he went because it was fucking hot and if he could just cool down for a second – just _think –_ then he could do something. Something to get away and get back to Kai, because Kai loved him, Kai needed him, not the other way around…

He'd gotten halfway out of his armor, chest plate somewhere near the door, gauntlets, shoulder pads, and arm plates trailing like Hansel's bread crumbs behind him, before Grif found what he hadn't realized he'd been looking for: a gap between two of the shelves set along the wall, just the right size. He was still hot – black insulate undershirt stuck where it was until he could take off the bottom half of his armor – but good enough. Grif went in back first until he hit stainless steel, then slid down so that he was sitting on the floor with his knees up to his chest.

 _Kai loves me_ , Grif thought.

He wrapped his hands around his legs, put his head in his arms, and reminded himself, over and over again, that cooler heads always prevailed.

* * *

 _AN_

Doc: _"And I'm Dexter Grif! Reporting for duty. Oh, wait, never mind! I forgot that I'm a worthless sack of human excrement that wouldn't be caught dead following orders, because I'm too busy wishing my parents loved me as much as my sister. Maybe if I had a stable father figure growing up I wouldn't be so opposed to order, but I guess that's just what happens when your mother turns tricks behind the elephant cage at the circus! Here Dex, have some more cotton candy! Hahahahaha!"_

(Everyone turns to stare at Grif.)

Grif: _"It was a_ _nice_ _circus."_

 _Geoff Ramsey's pathetically broken voice on that line had me rolling. How can something so sad be so funny? O'Malley was deliciously vicious in that scene._

 _And for the record, O'Malley's opinion on Kai is not my own. Actually, it's not his either. Kai crossed space and time for her older brother, as he well knows, but any villain worth his salt also knows how to grab a person's most vulnerable spot and squeeze. Mentally de-aged Grif is a lot rawer when it comes to the fear of abandonment than the orange-armored soldier who had to leave his past back home when he was drafted._


	9. Chapter 9

"I feel just _awful_ ," Doc said, for what had to be the five hundredth time, wringing his hands.

It had been nearly two hours since anyone had last seen Grif, and though they didn't _entirely_ blame Doc for it (what the hell could _Doc_ have possibly done?), they were pissed that he hadn't made Grif come in. Or at least radioed them so that _they_ could make him come in. They had no ethical qualms about forcing the issue at gunpoint.

"Okay, shut up," Simmons told him absently, arms folded as he stared at the view screen above his head. With "incidences" off the priority-list, Kimball had handed over Armonia's entire security station to the increasingly irritating (but finally official) search for Captain Grif. Simmons, who would've normally been reveling in the neat line of HQ soldiers following his every order while everyone else stood uselessly around watching him order around a neat line of HQ soldiers, studied the incomprehensible mashup of camera footage on the main panel, peeved worry in his tone. "Where could he have gone?"

"Nice job on that radio thing, by the way," Tucker remarked way too neutrally, looking at Church. "I especially liked the part where it created the mother of all feedback loops and actually managed to shut down every single camera in the city for almost twenty minutes."

"Oh shut up," the AI snapped from Carolina's shoulder, still in rare form.

"For crying out loud," the maroon soldier continued, mostly talking to himself, "he's not even wearing his helmet. Why aren't people recognizing him?"

"They clearly do not have the radar for worthlessness that I've honed through my years of studying that traitor Grif," Sarge declared, holding his shotgun ready, like he was prepared to shoot out the first camera view screen that showed the eponymous traitor. "Armonian field training has some clear deficits."

"Noted," Carolina said drily, over Wash's, "He could've picked up a new helmet. It wouldn't be the first – or even the fifth – time he's—"

"No," Church cut off the agent, still annoyed. "There aren't any unregistered active armor signals at the moment, and I'm forcibly keeping every helmet radio in this city on until we find that asshole."

"Which means that everyone in the city is probably currently listening to this conversation," Tucker pointed out.

"Likely," Church agreed, angrily unmoved by the thought.

"Get back to fucking work," Tucker immediately said to no one – but also probably everyone – in particular.

There was a very pregnant pause over the airwaves for a moment, then:

"See, sir," Palomo's voice cut into the line, "I'd love to, but—"

There was the sudden squeal of feedback, green team's lieutenant simultaneously swore and whimpered, and Church said, "Anyone who wants the same can stay on the line."

There was the sound of a couple thousand radio signals abruptly clicking over to a different channel.

"Thank you, Epsilon," Carolina said, not a bit of gratitude in her voice. Over on the other side of the room Doyle was surreptitiously rubbing his ear.

"I'm sure you haven't forgotten," Doc interjected, "but I just want to remind everyone that I really _do_ suspect that there's something wrong with Grif."

"I knew that," Caboose volunteered. "The orange guy's memory is full of Swiss cheese."

" _Holes,_ " Tucker corrected the blue soldier. He immediately added, "Don't even, Donut-Hole," to the pink soldier raising his hand, subconsciously recognizing a chance to make them all uncomfortable, and then clarified, "His memory's full of _holes,_ Caboose. And he means something _else_ is wrong with him."

"We hadn't forgotten, Doc," Church said, not even remotely concerned by the thought.

The medic kept on squeezing his gloved hands together. "He wouldn't let me check his temperature, and maybe I should've just done it anyways, but—"

Tired of listening to Doc verbalize his guilt one more time, Tucker cut him off. "So are we going to have to take him back to the temple then?"

"For Red glory!" Sarge declared, which was probably a "yes."

"For Red idiocy!" Doc agreed, so oh good, O'Malley was back.

Carolina ignored his sudden intrusion into the conversation, though Sarge didn't, silently but efficiently kicking the back of his knee and sending him to the floor. O'Malley came up cursing. "I'm not sure. We still don't know if the Charon forces have moved on."

"They _might've_ ," Wash suggested tentatively (also ignoring O'Malley, giving up on Sarge to respond to the grey soldier's answer with, "And they _might've_ sodomized your mother! HAHAHAHAHA!") "It's been hours since then."

Church sneered. "Either way it's a pain in the ass."

"And how is that new?" Tucker asked.

Donut gave them all a thumbs up. "I vote yes! I can't tell you how many times a pain in the ass has been worth it!"

In the uncomfortable silence that followed this declaration, Simmons suddenly rejoined the conversation. "Wait, wait, wait. Doc, you said he has a temperature, right?"

"I _suspect_ he has a temperature," O'Malley sneered, "but I _also_ suspect that you—"

The maroon soldier didn't let the insult get going. He snapped his fingers with the air of someone who'd just had an idea, cutting off the medic, then pointed at Church. "Thermal scanners. We can reset them to sense anyone above a certain temperature."

Out of habit, the AI opened his mouth to point out the many flaws in this plan, then realized that it was actually worth a try. The main view screen above their heads abruptly cleared itself of security footage and a map of the city appeared in its place, glowing dots of color indicating each warm body. A tally on the right side of the screen showed the number of people per floor and building.

"Guess high," the maroon soldier suggested. "Core body temperature in a healthy individual can range as much as one degree Fahrenheit higher or lower depending on hormone levels, physical activity, and the time of day."

"Congratulations," the AI told him without heat, already resetting the temperature sensors. "Your propensity for hypochondria has actually come in handy today."

"That's 0.6 degrees Celsius, plus or minus," Simmons added, almost smugly.

"This is a mind-numbingly stupid plan," O'Malley declared. "Truly, chimp-quality work. Clearly you have too much time and excrement on your hands."

"Gross!" Donut noted brightly. Simmons made a sound of protest as dots began to disappear by the thousands.

"Hundred one degrees," Church announced. Wash quietly got on the radio with Dr. Grey, making sure that all the dots in the hospital were accounted for.

"When _I_ was lost," the purple megalomaniac went on, "I didn't count on a bunch of mentally handicapped nincompoops to find _me!_ "

"Yes you did," Simmons argued back, tone annoyed but still a little absent with most of his focus turned on the map. "You were in the ice caves until we fucking strolled in and—"

"And you see how unfair life is!" O'Malley cut in. "I am a highly valued—"

"Pull the other one, windbag" Sarge suggested, breaking in to the rant, "you're taking too long to get to the punchline."

"—and important member of this and any other organization, but the most incompetent soldier of the most inept military team of all time – who was actually responsible for my accidental banishment, if you'll recall – gets all the attention that should've gone to someone who has more than "eating" and "sleeping" as a part of his skillset."

Sarge hmmed, struck by the thought. "Grif was never on the Blue Team. But otherwise, you have a point."

Suddenly, Tucker scoffed hard in the back of his throat. "Holy shit," he realized, "you're _jealous_."

O'Malley choked, then managed a, "No I'm not, I—!"

Tucker laughed. "What are you, five? You don't want us to find him because we kind of…" he faltered, "…forgot—"

"Totally forgot," Donut corrected him.

"—that you'd…kind of been…missing—" ("Totally been missing.") "—stop _helping_ , Donut—for, what was it, a couple days?"

"IT WASN'T—I'm not jealous, of course, I just think accuracy is important—IT WASN'T A COUPLE DAYS, IT WAS—"

"That feeling you feel right now? The one that says 'fuck Grif, they should've looked for me-ee-heeh-hee—" the insult momentarily devolved into fake crying. Tucker stopped a second later. "That's called 'jealousy,' idiot."

As O'Malley protested, the last few dots (accounted for by Dr. Grey; mostly green team, apparently, still recovering from their traumatic healing) disappeared and Carolina – who'd been hoping it would be that easy – blew out her breath, disappointed. It was loud enough for Wash to hear, who folded his arms and leaned back on his heels, huffing loud enough for the entire group to realize that the search was over, and had turned up nothing.

"I don't see anything," Caboose pointed out helpfully.

"No shit, Sherlock," Church retorted.

Tucker, done winding up O'Malley for now, added, "Well that was a waste of—"

"Oh crap," Simmons said. He turned to look at Wash. "He can't have gotten out of the city." He paused, then asked, a little anxiously, "Could he?"

Wash opened his mouth to tell him no, then wavered as Carolina visibly hesitated as well. Sarge put his shotgun on his shoulder and said it for them. "No telling what that dirt-bag has been up to for the last two hours."

Donut put his hands on his hips. "Well _that's_ inconvenient."

Tucker put a mockingly consoling hand on Simmons shoulder. "He's probably killed someone else by now and stolen another jeep. Or," he suggested, as the maroon soldier jerked out of his grasp, "Doc made a mistake—shut up, O'Malley, no one wants to hear your sad little boy schtick—and he's hiding again."

Simmons shook his head, annoyed. "Yeah, but then we're back to the problem of no one recognizing him, even though—"

"Or," Caboose said, "he's dead."

Without warning, O'Malley was Doc again. "Oh no! You don't really think—"

"Thank you for that," Church told the blue soldier, ignoring Doc's suddenly renewed hand-wringing and turning to the rest of them instead. "That jackass got around us somehow. _Again_."

"Dead people are very good at hide-and-seek," the blue soldier pointed out.

Doc hissed in a breath, prepping another round of apologies, but Sarge just said, "It's an unkind thing to get a man's hopes up. Let's go collect Lopez, we'll need someone to fly the Pelican."

"Caboose, Tucker, you're with me," Wash decided as the Reds exited, clearly claiming dibs on the perimeter search of Armonia. He looked over at his fellow freelancer. "If he's not outside the city, then he's still in it."

"Or he's dead," Caboose repeated, determined to have his point heard.

Wash ignored him. "Where should we start?"

"Epsilon?" Carolina prompted the AI.

"Okay, okay," Church acquiesced, "I'll stay here and coordinate another pointless ground-search. I know most of his go-to places. Start from his quarters, most of his napping spots radiate out from there."

"How many plans does he have up his sleeve anyways?" Tucker asked Church as they started to leave.

"Who cares?" the AI demanded. "He's got to run out eventually."

"Especially if he's dead," the blue soldier tried one last time, and for that Tucker tripped him as they jogged out the door.

* * *

There was a gasp, followed by the sound of a metal tray hitting the floor, and Grif managed to peel his frozen eyelashes off his cheeks. A woman stood over the smashed remains of what looked like individual servings of chocolate pudding, astonishment written all over her face. So the jig was up then. He knew he should leave. Thought about it for half a second. Didn't move.

Instead he studied her dully as she closed the few feet between them, taking in the large apron and the rather unfortunate hairnet, realizing that he'd just plain run out of luck. She dropped to her knees with a hesitant, "Captain Grif?"

Not that shit again. But hell if they weren't consistent.

Her hands closed on his arm. For a second he thought she was trying to pull him to his feet but she gave a startled little, "Oh!" and put a hand to his forehead. A moment later she was on the radio with someone in command.

 _Move_ , he thought. _I really need to move_. He closed his eyes for a second, needing to gather just a little more resolve before he made the attempt, and abruptly he became aware of someone insistently shaking his shoulders, hands gripped tight on his upper arms.

"Shit, I take back what I said," a voice very close to his face stated. "I can feel the heat through the insulate on my gloves. Grif? Grif, c'mon man, we should still get you out of here."

A woman's soft voice, just slightly on this side of petulant, said, "I _thought_ it might be a good idea to let him keep cooling off."

"Yeah, yeah," the close voice said again, "Save your 'I told you so's' for Agent Washington. He likes that kind of back-talk. Personally, I like—oh good, there you are. About time. You with me, Grif?"

Grif had opened his eyes in the middle of the passive-aggressive exchange, to take in the aquamarine soldier crouched in front of him, the cafeteria worker hovering just behind his shoulder. At the soldier's question he closed his eyes again, annoyed that he had wasted any chance he might've had at getting away, and uninterested in helping this guy in any way, shape, or form.

"No you don't, you—shit, where the hell is Caboose? Church, get Caboose on the line." There was silence, then: "You're _where_? I don't care how many zucchinis Private Withers says you can have, I need your stupid-ass strength. And take those fucking things out of your armor, I'm not helping you clean it up this time." Another silence. "Because I'm psychic. Yes, everybody's psychic today but you. Get your ass down here."

Aquamarine huffed with annoyance, but Grif knew he'd turned his attention back to him when he started pulling on his arms, like that would force him to respond. Yeah, nice try.

"Come on, fatass," the soldier said sharply, but the bite to his tone was wrong somehow. Not entirely annoyance. Something else. Hell if Grif knew what. "I'm not moving you without help. Stand up."

Grif, wondering exactly what he'd done to make this guy think he'd listen to him, hunkered down into a slightly more comfortable position without opening his eyes.

"Come _on_ , Grif," he insisted anxiously.

"Stop coddling him," a new voice broke in, from the direction of the door. Grif frowned then relaxed his expression, pretending he hadn't noticed. "You have to have the right touch with Grif."

"The softest touch," a jaunty voice – definitely attached to a soldier in pink armor – explained.

"No!" the voice bellowed, closer now, and Grif would know that stupid Southern accent anywhere. "The kind of touch that puts four pounds of pressure on the trigger of a shotgun. No more, no less. But in this case: more."

"Nipple twister?" came the voice of the maroon guy, close on red's heels.

"Armpit juicer," Deliverance answered. He didn't acknowledge the "excellent choice, sir!" but said, this time to Grif, "On your feet."

Grif was prepared to ignore this command too, but it came with two sets of hands that went right into his armpits, simultaneously lifting and squeezing as hard as they could. He gasped at the sharp pain and opened his eyes, already halfway to his feet.

"You guys are fuckin' assholes," Pimp Daddy said from the doorway, but he didn't sound like he was going to do anything to make them stop, so he could keep his useless commentary to himself. The cafeteria lady had been pushed farther into the freezer, standing out of the way as she rubbed her shoulders with a partially scandalized, mostly interested look on her face.

"Nope," someone said abruptly, slapping Grif on the face. He hadn't realized he'd closed his eyes until he was opening them, trying to figure out who was hitting him. Wait. Stupid question. The red guy kept on smacking him, forcing his chin back and forth with his other hand so that he could switch which cheek he was targeting as efficiently as possible. He seemed unaware of Grif's flinching attempts to dodge back from his hand. "I already let Simmons and Donut carry you once today. You only get one a decade."

Next time he would try to fall on the maroon soldier, who may have had a painfully tight grip under his left arm but seemed less likely to punish him for, you know, passing out. His head was actually starting to clear though. Grif shivered suddenly, relieved that he felt cold. Plus, now that he was up and moving, he felt like he could think again. He didn't even mind when Bert said, "I couldn't do it again anyways. I think he threw out my back earlier."

Okay, mostly didn't mind. As soon as they cleared the door he was going to pretend to pass out on the maroon pile of neuroses just for that comment alone. If he slid into his foot he could probably bring him down, which would make the red asshole lose his grip, and if it all happened fast enough the peanut gallery wouldn't have time to figure out what was going on before he made a break for it. It was a desperate, last-ditch plan, maybe, but with at least half a chance at succeeding.

But when they came out of the freezer – awkwardly, because there wasn't room for more than a person and a half through it at a time, which should've made the plan even better – aquamarine and pink (who was trying, rather unhelpfully, to reach in and help; red guy finally jabbed him out of the way with his elbow) weren't the only observers. All the faiths were represented, from several shades of blue on through purple and back to grey, ranged among the stoves and kitchen counters. They watched him with their hands on their weapons like they were waiting for him to try something.

If Grif hadn't stopped crying the day after he'd turned eight, he would've done it now. Why were they all here? He was just some dumb shit kid. He couldn't be their only experiment. He could not possibly still be worth the effort, after all that. _Come on_ , he thought. _Give up. Give up, you assholes, I'm never going to quit trying to get out of here_.

So he went ahead and pulled out his other desperate, last-ditch plan. The one he'd promised himself he would never try.

"Please," he pleaded. "Let me go home."

The entire group shifted, breaking the tension he hadn't even realized was in the room. The hologram spoke first. "Ah hell, Grif. You're already—"

Heat shot straight into his head and he was sagging halfway to the floor with no memory of losing his footing. Pink had somehow beamed in from his place next to aquamarine and had his surprisingly sturdy shoulder braced under Grif's chest, pushing upwards like he was going to get him up on his feet again through willpower alone, while the red soldiers to his left and right spoke over each other, tones either strained or annoyed by the fact that they had caught him and were keeping him off the ground. One went, "Walk or leave in a body bag, dirt bag," and the other – voice straining more than the first – said, "We're trying. We're…you'll go home, we promise."

Grif figured it was only fair to tell them. "I don't trust you." The red sergeant flicked him bruisingly hard behind the ear and Grif re-steadied his legs, taking the bulk of his weight off their shoulders. Pink backed off, hands still up in a ready-position and absolutely _oozing_ concern.

It hadn't been a question, but Bert answered him anyways, tone somehow frustrated, annoyed, and gentle all at once. "Yes you do, you shithead."

And Grif, for some reason, almost believed him.

* * *

 _AN: The Red Policy Manual contains an entire subsection on "Suggested Methods for Getting (MINOR JUNIOR) Private (NEGATIVE) First Class Grif (YOU DIRTBAG) Moving," listed alphabetically and rated according to popularity and success rate. "Armpit Juicer" is listed first, but the most effective – and least popular – technique is item number two: "The Ass Grab." Used only by Donut and only ever, even that one time, on "accident." There was a huge argument at the time it went into the manual whether "accident" ought to go in quotation marks or not. Donut lost._

 _(Bonus fact: the exchange "Nipple twister?"/"Armpit juicer" was one of the first things I wrote for this fic. Take that as you will.)_


	10. Chapter 10

_Do you remember that "fanfic melodrama" I threatened you guys with about a year ago?_

 _Well._

 _Here it is._

* * *

By the time they buckled Grif into his restraints, whatever relief he'd gotten from the freezer was long gone. What, did they keep it 90 degrees in here? Or was this some interrogation tactic that would turn out to be fucking useless because he didn't know fucking anything? He hadn't been a fan of the restraints in the first place, though he'd let it slide because 1.) he was too exhausted to do anything about it, and 2.) they had packed him into some sort of plane, and the belt buckles were clearly a safety device and designed to be released by the wearer. Not, mind you, that he liked the fact that they were clearly taking him somewhere, but at least the restraints made sense.

The grey soldier tightened the belts on his shoulders – Grif would've preferred the maroon one, don't ask him why, but he was in the cockpit talking to the pilot who, for some reason, kept answering in Spanish – and Grif finally dropped his decision to be stoic in the face of possible torture.

"Turn down the fucking heat," he gasped.

Grey guy – Nice Guy, he thought, recognizing him – paused in what he was doing, then turned his head and called, "Lopez, would you mind making it colder in here?"

Grif didn't understand the Spanish that followed, but clearly the answer was no because, instead of the temperature dropping, it kicked up another notch. He could feel sweat trickling down his back.

The grey guy put a hand on his shoulder. "Better?" he asked.

Well yay. "Yeah," Grif said, because the guy had either tried and it hadn't worked, or he'd purposefully made it worse and Grif didn't want to give him the satisfaction of thinking he was getting to him. "Great."

Grey guy nodded and took a seat next to him, and then for some bizarre reason the red guy who hated him ended up in the seat right across from him. To his utter relief, the Muppet came into the room and took the seat still open on his right. He had the feeling he could talk Bert into…well, whatever he might need to talk him into to get out of this, if the opportunity presented itself.

"Lopez says it'll take at least an hour to get there. Probably two."

"What?" someone demanded from across the room. Grif tried to put a face to the voice and couldn't. "It's like a two minute flight."

Pimp Daddy, he remembered suddenly. Aquamarine. No faces to go with voices, just colors.

"Twenty minute flight, normally," came the correction, "but that's without a Charon spaceship locked in on our signal." Pimp Daddy swore, but Bert went on. "Lopez thinks if we keep low to the ground and follow some of the natural ravines they'll have a hard time spotting us. He's got some jumps planned, but those are for losing any tails and won't actually get us there any faster."

Grey guy spoke from next to Grif, tone incredulous. "And _Lopez_ told you all this."

"Lopez never lies," Deliverance interjected, which Grif was pretty sure had nothing to do with anything. Holy shit, was it hot in here, or was it just him? "You can count on him to come up with the best plans."

"Si," came a voice from the cockpit.

"Yeah," Nice Guy said, "that's not really the issue."

And right then, for some insane reason, Kai's homeroom teacher walked onto the plane.

"He has his route mapped out, okay?" maroon answered grey, annoyed and strangely unaware that Mr. King had just invaded their military operation. He didn't so much as glance at him as he kept talking. "I'm sure that's his plan. I mean I'm guessing, but I'm sure."

"Play nice, boys and girls," said a voice. Okay, Mr. King had some kickass technology. Was that a holographic office assistant? It flickered out, then popped back into existence a second later. "The ship's ready."

Mr. King took the seat between aquamarine and red, then smacked the side of the plane above his head twice. "Take her up," he called. Immediately the plane started shuddering, but Mr. King didn't seem to notice, just turned his head to look directly at Grif. "He okay?"

Grif wasn't sure whether he ought to answer a question that had been asked about him in the third person, and before he could make up his mind Bert answered for him. "Yeah, he's okay."

"He's really not!" a voice chimed in from somewhere on the left.

"We noticed, thanks Doc," said the office assistant.

Mr. King kept on talking to maroon, though Grif got the feeling he was looking at him. "He seems quiet. You okay?" he asked Grif, directly this time. The plane kept shuddering and he realized that it wasn't going to smooth out anytime soon. Great. Just what the doctor ordered.

But if Kai's homeroom teacher wanted to do this here, who was he to ask why? Grif licked his lips, feeling how dry they were. "It's been hard since Mom started working so many nights and weekends, but money hasn't been as tight." It helped that they'd been evicted from their apartment. Amazing how much money you saved when you didn't have to pay rent. Or utilities. Or, you know, gas, since Mom had been good enough to take the car with her. Too bad they had to eat.

"Oh," Mr. King said. "Well that's…uh, that's good."

The teacher seemed uncertain what else to say, so Grif apologized for the obvious. "Sorry Mom couldn't be here."

"Uh, Grif?" asked the guy next to him, but screw it, it was stupid-hot and uncomfortable and the air conditioning was obviously broken, but nothing would stop him from being here. Mr. King had insisted on this parent-teacher conference, he was going to get his fucking parent-teacher conference, even if he had to get it with Grif and not an actual parent because, sorry, Dex and Kai didn't have any parents left to come. News flash: Mom didn't give a shit, hadn't _ever_ given a shit, _wouldn't_ ever give a shit (had actually figured out how to give even less shits than he had thought possible last fucking month), so forgive him if he was the only Grif left to come to parent-teacher night. At least the next time that asshole Brandon Schwimmer asked if Mom was good at something other than turning tricks behind the Highline High Top, he'd have an answer for him: not shit-giving.

Mr. King had removed his helmet – his helmet? That didn't seem right – and had her – wait – his mouth half open.

Oh hell. Had he just said that out loud?

"You did," said a voice on the other side of him. "That doesn't really seem like a good sign." An arm came into his periphery – maroon armor, why did that seem familiar? – and a gloveless hand was suddenly trying to get at his forehead. Grif dodged it as best he could, weirded out and ignoring the, "Hold—fucking hold still, don't—" that accompanied it, until it finally shoved itself against his neck, which wasn't really any better. Maroon spoke over him to Grey. "Yeah, that's _really_ not a good sign. He's definitely in brain-frying territory."

"Dufresne?" Mr. King called without taking her – no, shit, his – eyes off him.

"Screw it," one of them – not the maroon one, he thought, must be the grey one – said, unbuckling from his restraints. "Doc, get over here. Tell me what you need and I'll get it for you."

Deciding it had nothing to do with him, Grif tried to apologize to Mr. King for his outburst. "I, uh, I'm sorry about that," he said, but then o _h no you don't_ he thought as he saw the teal armored teacher start to unbuckle. You are not walking away from this. He spoke more quickly. "It's been a rough couple of weeks. I know Kai's missed a lot of school lately, but there must be something she can do to make it up. Do you have any extra credit projects? I'll make sure she gets it done, it's—"

"Grif," Mr. King tried to interrupt, but Grif wouldn't let him.

"—it's _important,_ " he persisted doggedly, "to both of us – all of us, I mean, it's important to Mom too – that she finish high school. School is really important, Mr. King, we both – all – know that, and—"

" _Grif_ ," he tried again.

But Grif didn't let it stop him this time either. He would talk himself out of this mess. He always did.

* * *

Grif explained his idea to Dave carefully, trying to convey to him how much time and effort they would save if they didn't stock the shelves but just let the customers peruse through the back. "I mean, why stock shelves when you know you're just going to be restocking them in a couple days? Seems like a huge waste of time, man."

"Uh huh," Dave said. "I see what the problem is. And even better! I know how to fix it: you're fired."

Dave was a good guy. There was an old apartment above the store, stacked half full with boxes of receipts and old ledgers, and he'd told Grif he could spend the night up there whenever he worked the late shift, and then he'd pretended not to know that both Grif and his little sister had moved in. He had a dry sense of humor, sardonic but not cruel, and he never lied. Not even for a joke.

"Dave," Grif said at last, "I need this job."

"Dammit, Sarge," Wash snapped. "Stop screwing with him, for _once_."

An hour and a half. Ninety-one minutes and Grif hadn't stopped talking for a single one of them.

Sometimes he recognized them (well, not _recognized_ recognized them; sometimes he was aware they were the asshole marines that had kidnapped him for vaguely nefarious purposes – and hadn't that been both a hilarious and kind of sad realization; they were going to give him hell if – _when_ – he could appreciate it again) and other times he talked to the wall like it gave a shit about whether that dipstick from child protective services was onto him or how much Sister liked her haircut. (Not much, by all indications; he'd already asked the control panel next to Carolina's head if its mom would do it next time.)

He talked to his teachers. He talked to Sister's teachers. He talked to the customers that came into the corner mart and then he talked to some guy named Pal, which had apparently not gone well. He explained to his friends that he couldn't spend the night or come to the party or stay after school, always because he didn't feel like it or he didn't want to or it sounded like a big fucking waste of his time, and never because he had to make dinner or track down his idiot-stick sister or get up at three in the morning to stock shelves over at the big box store. When the corner mart needed him for a shift that conflicted with work elsewhere he had beach plans, when his teachers wanted to talk to his mother she had to work, and about the time that Wash was securing the healing unit to the storage compartment above his head, they discovered that he'd brace himself with a strangely resigned yet defiant look every time someone raised their hand above his head. Well. Depending on who he thought was in the room at the time.

Sarge started to put up a hand, testing – rather hopefully – whether it would earn him a flinch, but Carolina cleared her throat rather dangerously and the red sergeant gave it up with a grumble. Anyways, question asked and answered: Grif had only furrowed his eyebrows at him in annoyed confusion. Apparently Dave wasn't a hitter.

"Seriously. _Stop,_ " Wash repeated, tone exasperated.

Sarge didn't bother responding to the freelancer's dogged inability to understand how Red Team operated. "What's my time?" he asked of Tucker instead, backing off of Grif as the aquamarine soldier took his place, with a cup of water Donut had just handed to him. They'd been taking turns seeing who could get him to shut up the longest.

By then Grif had started talking again – not to anyone in particular this time, just a meandering stream-of-consciousness on his job which was quickly taking a detour no one could track – but Tucker ignored him, checking the timer on his HUD. "That's still twenty-two seconds short of Caboose's record." Caboose had, among other things, regaled Grif with a monologue about whether fat ponies made sticky or slimy glue. So far it was the only thing that had stymied him.

Grif's voice cracked on the end of "—two weeks, that's all I'm asking, just two—" and Tucker shoved the cup into his face.

"Drink," he said, tipping it into his mouth. Grif drank – good, he didn't always – and then, talking to himself again, started back with "—in the vids it's always loan sharks threatening to break your thumbs or your legs or whatever, but I'd take one of those over the pre-payday interest collectors any fucking day of the week, those guys are assholes. Why did Mom take out so many under the table loans?" voice still hoarse. For a while they'd tried not giving him water, hoping he'd talk himself out, but Carolina had put a kibosh on that about the time Doc started making weird whimpering noises anytime someone said the word "dehydrated."

Grif spotted Tucker suddenly and apparently felt that he owed him an explanation. "She should've just stuck with the credit cards. All you have to do is move three or four times and they either give up or send you to collections. Big fucking whoop."

"I can see why you're so great with money," Tucker remarked, shoving the cup at him again. Grif tried to dodge it this time, but the aquamarine soldier just angled it at him more aggressively. Drink or drown, bitch. Tucker ignored his combination cough-swearing, taking the sign of him swallowing as a win. "We there yet, Lopez?"

And that was ninety-two minutes.

"Would you knock it off," Simmons snapped from his location in the cockpit, leaning over the navigation display. "I ask you to watch him for two seconds and you use the opportunity to try and kill him."

"What can I say?" Tucker asked, trying to force more water down Grif's throat. "Suck it, Red."

"That's my cue!" Donut declared immediately, tone bright as he tried to muscle in on the aquamarine soldier, hand already reaching for the glass. "Ready for me to take over?"

There was an immediate chorus of "NO!"s at his offer. Sarge had been banned from water duty first, but Donut had been a close second; Sarge because no one was sure he wouldn't just drown Grif, Donut because they could only take his gentle coaxing ( _that's right, Grif, hold it in your mouth as long as you want, swallow when you feel comfortable)_ for about three point five seconds, which was three point five seconds of their lives they would never get back.

The healing unit abruptly glowed to life over Grif's head. It was about time too – they were starting to get a feel for the rhythm of it. It couldn't fix whatever was wrong with him, but it would kick in every time the fever literally starting frying his brain, reversing the damage. Grif's temperature would drop a few degrees, he'd go back to recognizing his evil captors, and Simmons' jaw would tighten a little more because every time his "safe" temperature was just a little higher.

His jaw was tight now, but he stayed where he was, looking for shortcuts in Lopez's planned route. Lopez's expressionless face somehow conveyed how little he appreciated the interference – or perhaps that was just the flat tone of his voice, which Doc was doing his best to translate. The medic was more accurate than Donut, but he had a tendency to soften insults until they sounded vaguely complimentary, which didn't improve Lopez's mood. The android smacked Simmons' hand off the display.

"Drink," Tucker ordered again, not sure if the flush across Grif's face was fading. When he turned his head away instead, Tucker swooped the cup in on him like a parent trying to fake out their six-month-old with the old plane trick, and Grif spit on him.

Tucker started, looking down at the saliva on his chest plate. "Son of a bitch!" While he'd actually _had_ a six-month-old at one point, Grif was approximately eighty thousand times less endearing than Junior, which wasn't helping his patience any.

Sarge, busy ordering Donut to refresh the water in Grif's helmet (Simmons had brought Grif's armor on board, anticipating his eventual need for them, and the helmet had already come in handy as a bowl), managed an approving, "Heh."

Doc, noticing the exchange, called out in a tone of mild admonishment, "Don't let him do that. He stopped sweating a while ago, so it would be better if he kept all of his fluid in his body."

Tucker grumbled something uncomplimentary about both of them.

"Oh, and see if you can get him down below a hundred and five."

"Or one hundred, while you're dreaming," Church said from Carolina's shoulder, over Grif telling no one they could see that Kai was busy and wouldn't be coming to the party.

Carolina pursed her lips but said nothing, absently watching Donut's glaringly white chest as the pink soldier disappeared into the lavatory. Sarge had commandeered his undershirt as a cooling rag – despite the rhinestones – and Donut looked more than a little odd in just a helmet and the bottom half of his armor, having left his chest and arm plates where he'd deposited them. A moment later you could hear the sound of an open tap.

She stood, letting out a silent breath. Uselessness put her on edge.

"Maybe you should press the cringe-button," Caboose suggested, putting his hand up in illustration as Donut returned, carefully balancing the water-filled helmet.

As a joke, Tucker started to raise his hand at an oblivious Grif, saying, "If you don't drop your temperature right this second I'll—"

"For the love of—" Simmons started, but Carolina had had enough.

"The next person that even _thinks_ about putting their hand above his head goes straight out the airlock," she said with the bland menace of someone fully capable of following through, snatching the cup out of Tucker's hand and dismissing him in the same neat maneuver. She handed off the cup to Donut (standing hopefully at the ready once more), trading it for the helmet in his hands.

It was interesting to watch Grif's face whenever someone new took over. Depending on who he thought they were a range of really telling emotions would transform his expression, which he'd then almost immediately school into a neutral look of I-give-no-shits. It was strangely impressive.

"I can't talk right now," Grif informed her, "and—wait. Wait, you're not…is it Tuesday or Wednesday?"

"'Seems quiet,'" Church quoted mockingly. To their right Simmons had started to ream out Tucker (for what, he wouldn't say), though the rest of them starting taking sides anyways, drowning out Donut as the bare-chested soldier tried to back up his teammate with an admonishing tsk of, "Do you need to attend Donut's Feelings Hour?" Above Grif's head the healing unit churned. "Thanks for that, Carolina."

Carolina – who, as a side-effect of being a girl, had missed the fact that they were dealing with the awkwardness of finding out more than any of them had wanted to know about the shit Grif had had to deal with as a kid by not acknowledging it – admitted, in a quiet voice to the AI, "I'd always wondered."

Church grunted but didn't otherwise react.

Recognizing that having someone loom over him made Grif nervous, Carolina sat before she began trying to cool him down. He fell silent and eyed her out of the corner of his eye, tensing every time she wrung water over the back of his neck. "When you guys sometimes tell stupid stories about your childhoods, Grif's are almost always just on the edge of too-awful to be funny." He usually picked up on their discomfort fast enough to cut them short, but she had caught him glancing at Simmons once, who'd subtly shaken his head "no" and abruptly changed the subject for him.

Missing Church's own discomfort – or ignoring it, hard to say – she continued. "I had a friend like that once—" another agent, years gone now "—who told me that the problem was you had no baseline for normal. When normal meant your father beat you while mom lay passed out in her own vomit, it was hard to gauge exactly what would strike someone else as horrifying."

"Yeah," Church finally said. "A story about riding the whirligig for five straight hours because your mother had stolen tickets from her boyfriend who was sure _you_ had stolen them and was waiting at the Exit until you got off is hilarious in context. Only I'm pretty sure it was a pissed off john, and Grif probably didn't escape with just a talking-to. Can we stop talking about this?"

"Seriously," Grif cut in unexpectedly, looking up at both of them like he was too tired to figure it out any other way. "What the fuck do you people want with me?"

"Oh good, we're back to being kidnappers, are we?" the AI said instead of answering the question. Overhead, the healing unit shut itself off.

Grif, spotting Caboose over Carolina's shoulder, scoffed in an exhausted way but otherwise ignored the AI in turn. "You ever find any blue-striped people?"

Caboose brightened. "Oh! I did! I am very good at finding—" his tone suddenly turned suspicious "…waaaiiiiit. I think you are the guy who _lied_ to me."

"That was some other guy," Grif assured him. He flinched as Carolina dropped the wet shirt onto his head, then relaxed a little, closing his eyes as water squelched over his face. He looked drained. "You want to find something else for me?"

"I will get my binoculars and—ooh, I already have my binoculars so I can—"

"No, Caboose," Church countered, watching them both with his arms folded. "No you may NOT find anything else for Grif. Or the orange guy, the bathroom guy, the guy that lied, or any other guy that…you know what? Fuck it. You only find things for me now. You _don't_ listen to me, and I kill you."

"Shit on a stick," Tucker realized, dropping the _you-insensitive-asshole_ argument with Simmons to take in Grif. "You're the reason Caboose felt like he had to go find a bathroom, aren't you? I thought it was a little fucking stupid, even for him."

Carolina didn't laugh, but she did shake her head in something that might've been amusement. Simmons, misinterpreting her look, immediately abandoned his post to take the seat on Grif's other side. She pulled the cloth aside to dunk it back in the helmet, allowing the maroon soldier access, and he put his hand to Grif's forehead.

Grif opened his eyes, simultaneously trying – and failing – to back out of his reach. "Not _you_ again."

"Hundred and six," the maroon soldier announced, "point—"

"You have the dumbest party tricks," Tucker said.

"It's not a party trick," Simmons retorted, pretending to be annoyed while actually kind of proud that the only party trick in his repertoire was coming in handy for once. He'd always been able to tell how many degrees someone was just by feeling their foreheads. Though it was a little depressing how few girls found that impressive. "It's genetic on my mother's side," he explained, unaware that nothing could convince the rest of them that it wasn't the result of the unholy union between a severe case of hypochondria and his borderline obsessive compulsive disorder. "Hundred and six point…three. Or four, maybe," he finished, dropping his hand.

He was also weirdly accurate. Which was good, because Doc's medical device was either accidentally or purposefully useless, depending on which personality was in charge. The only thing the medic had done so far was non-confrontationally insist that they track the fever, and wring his hands every time Grif crossed a temperature threshold that would've sent him into heat-convulsions if not for the healing unit.

"Doc," Wash called, standing with badly faked nonchalance against the wall, watching the proceedings. Still, nothing like hoping the medic would eventually come up with something helpful anyways. "Get over here."

Doc, realizing that it was the first time he'd be face-to-face with Grif when the orange soldier was coherent, hesitated. "I don't think that's the best idea right now."

Donut urged him forward, tone cheerful. "Don't worry. If you don't kill him, Sarge will."

Doc seemed uncertain how to take that, but Simmons just sighed, annoyed. "Next time, can we bring a real doctor?"

"It would've helped," Wash interjected, tone overly bland, "if the real doctor wasn't busy dealing with the fallout of a mass suicide attempt."

"They just don't make 'em like they used to," Sarge acknowledged.

"You," Church said as Carolina vacated her seat, handing off the helmet to a cringing Simmons, guilt written in every line of his body, "don't get to fucking contribute."

Doc hesitated another moment longer, then crouched down in front of Grif rather than taking the agent's chair, already reaching around his belt for his scanner.

Grif actually whacked his head on the back of his seat he drew back so fast, startling both Simmons and Donut, who dropped the cup in his hands. "Get the hell away from me," he demanded in a voice that was half panic, half rage.

"Oh," Doc said. He started to put a hand on Grif's knee, who dodged it. He was surprisingly nimble for a guy strapped into Pelican seat-style chest restraints, "No, it's me right now – the nice one – I'm not going to say anything mean."

"He's crazy," Grif said up at Simmons. He tried to kick Doc, who had attempted to drop another reassuring hand on his knee. "He's insane."

Tucker stared at them both. "What the fuck did you say to him?"

"Take notes," Sarge ordered his second in command.

Doc started to answer but Grif cut in with, " _Nothing_." He seemed to realize that no one was going to believe such an obvious lie and switched to, "None of your fucking business. Just…I don't…"

Abruptly Doc leaned in, stance suspiciously aggressive, and then O'Malley's voice went, "You mean the little boy doesn't _want_ everyone to know how his mother—"

Carolina cleared her throat, Donut tsked and opened his mouth to say something, but Caboose just dropped a heavy hand on the medic's shoulder, nearly staggering him to the floor. He was probably smiling (there was something cheerful about the way he had done it), and then he put both hands under Doc's armpits and lifted him straight to his feet.

" _Oh_ ," O'Malley said, suddenly face-to-face with Caboose.

Apparently Church's dressing-down had sunk in more than usual – either that or it had happened a short enough time ago that Caboose still remembered it – because the blue soldier faltered for a second before he looked over at the AI, watching from Carolina's shoulder.

Church gave him an approving nod. "You may proceed."

Caboose steered Mr. Multiple Personality to the seat next to Tucker, passing a disgruntled Sarge and stepping right over Donut, who was wiping water off the floor but stopped to give him a thumbs-up as they passed. Caboose pushed Doc down onto it with one hand, then, inexplicably, sat on him.

"I think you should sit here for a while," Caboose explained helpfully.

Tucker leaned over to Doc, who was already losing the feeling in his legs (but – himself again – he knew he deserved it so he didn't protest for now), and asked, "So what _did_ you say to him?'

Simmons had been burning with curiosity (he hated not knowing anything, no matter how small or inconsequential, and as far as he was concerned this didn't count as either), but he took one look at Grif's face and swallowed it. "You heard him: mind your own fucking business."

"I don't think I want to know one more depressing thing about his childhood anyways," Wash agreed, but that ventured just far enough over the line into we-can-pretend-but-we-all-know-we-know-more-than-any-of-us-ever-wanted-to that the entire group cringed – the freelancer most of all, possibly because Sarge had just whacked him in the shin with the stock of his shotgun – and got busy doing other things.

"Well hey!" Donut exclaimed suddenly. "Did anyone think to start the timer?"

They all looked at Grif, suddenly noticing that he was quiet. Though he wasn't asleep, the thousand yard stare was promising. Church checked the map, then announced, "About ten miles to go."

Tucker snorted. "Oh great, just like a little kid. Sure, fall asleep two minutes away from our destination. Why couldn't you have done this an hour and a half ago?"

Carolina shushed the aquamarine soldier – actually shushed him, and though that didn't stop him from mocking her for it, he did so in a quiet undertone at odds with his usual rowdy voice – but then Caboose got so loud "shh"ing everyone else in range that it sounded like Niagara Falls.

Grif blinked, pulled from his reverie, then looked over at Simmons. Behind the maroon soldier Donut had just declared first-person-who-speaks-loses, but in the half second before either Wash, Tucker, or Church could declare themselves out (and Sarge could proclaim himself in), it was actually silent enough that everyone could hear the quietly defeated words perfectly.

"I don't get it," Grif told the maroon soldier. "If Mom had…why wouldn't she just tell me what I _did_?"

Simmons suddenly couldn't look at any of the others, focusing harder than he needed to on wringing out the shirt in his hands and wondering whether he ought to just strangle Grif and put them all out of their misery before this became any more uncomfortable. "She—you didn't…" he tried, struggling with the words and remembering another kid in another time and place, sitting alone in his room while his mother cried in the kitchen, studying the goodbye note from his father for clues to what he could've done differently. "She…she just—"

He gave up, reaching over to slap the wet material onto the back of Grif's neck, right at the base of his already soaking hairline. For just a second his arm tightened around the orange soldier's neck like he was going to go ahead and go for that headlock after all, and every single one of them had the decency to pretend they didn't recognize the one-armed hug for what it was. "It was never your fucking fault."

They were saved the trouble of coming up with something to fill the awkward silence that followed the discomfort of watching private vulnerability firsthand when the Pelican slowed unexpectedly, jerking everyone into their neighbor. Wash and Carolina kept their dignity mostly intact, though only Donut seemed outright pleased, Tucker snapping at him to get the hell out of his lap. Simmons, dripping with what was left of the helmet water, quickly scanned Grif's face, but the restraints had done their job; he was practically asleep, blinking heavily but apparently unperturbed.

"Are we there yet?" Caboose asked, as the viewport in front of Lopez filled with trees, the Pelican dropping into the jungle.

Wash frowned at the navigation display. "No. We're still a couple miles away."

"What are you doing?" Church demanded of the robot.

Lopez seemed unmoved as he settled the ship onto the ground. I am not surprised he said, tapping the radar to his right, but your plans have already failed.

"Thanks Lopez," Donut said. "Lopez thinks we could use the exercise," he translated for the others.

"Uh," Doc tried, hesitantly. "That sounded a little more like a cryptic warning to me, though maybe—"

"A ground assault," Sarge declared. "Excellent thinking, Lopez. We'll—"

But Carolina, ignoring the red sergeant as he explained the merits of sneak attacks on empty garrisons, had brought up the radar on the main display. She squeezed the bridge of her nose, sighed, then turned to her fellow agent. "Now what?"

Wash just cursed.

"Son of a bitch, we're in trouble," Tucker agreed, looking at the radar screen over the agent's shoulder, which was the succinct way to say that the Temple of Healing had Charon soldiers crawling all over it.

* * *

 _AN: I think I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Augh, I suck. Sorry about the long delay. Finally back on track, and planning to keep it that way. Next time: same bat-channel, a more promising bat-time, folks!_

 _(Also, credit to Ria for "Donut's Feelings Hour" which I borrowed without permission, mostly because it about made me pee my pants I laughed so hard the first time I read it in chapter six of "Seeing Red ('Cause That's a Lot of Blood)." Always ask for forgiveness, never permission. Thanks, dreamer!)_


	11. Chapter 11

Voices. Lots of voices. Talking. No, arguing. Yeah, definitely arguing.

Shit his head hurt.

"Anyone have any bright ideas?"

"I was hoping they'd be gone by now."

Grif felt like he was in a sweatbox, something across his chest, head bumping against some sort of bar, sitting close enough to weigh in on the argument taking place somewhere off to his right if he'd been so inclined. Not worth the effort. He didn't even care enough to figure out what they were arguing about.

"That's not an idea, bright or otherwise. But thanks for that brilliant contribution."

"I'm just saying, we were kind of counting on—"

Someone, closer than the people still arguing, spoke suddenly, not quite within arm's reach but probably near it. "Is he asleep?"

"I think so," a voice said, right in front of his face. A hand went to his forehead. "Temperature's going up again—" ("For the record," the other voice broke in, "it is still really fucking weird that you can do that.") "—but at least he's quiet now."

"Mom?" Grif asked.

The hand actually drew back at that and he thought _you idiot, why would that be mom?_

"Kai," he said, opening his eyes. Kai looked worried so he gave her a smile. "Sorry, squirt. I'll be fine. A good night's sleep and I'll be back to normal."

Kai turned to someone outside of his periphery and called out, "Let's just go with a stupid idea."

Shoot, she must have friends over. He tried to get up to make sure it was one of her girlfriends and not some asshole football player looking for a free ride, but his backpack got caught on the back of his chair and forced him back into his seat. Kai gave him a distracted frown, then straightened and moved out of the way, letting her friend take her spot.

Great. One of those dweeby tennis players. They were persistent assholes, he'd give them that.

"Just because I'm a little off my game doesn't mean you can do what you want with my sister," he said, trying to get up again. His backpack caught him for the second time and he pretended it hadn't, hoping neither of them had noticed. "You try anything and you'll spend the rest of your life with your racket up your ass."

The tennis player said nothing at first, then finally turned to look over at Kai, hovering slightly behind him. "I just want to point out that, out of all of us, he thinks you're the girl."

"Oh fuck you," she said.

Atta girl, Grif thought.

The tennis player stood back up and stepped away, rejoining his team. "Let's just use the Pelican and plow right into the inner courtyard. The timing will be tight, but if we take them by surprise we could take over the place for however long we need it – should only be a couple minutes, right? – then hop back in and plow right back out again."

"That might actually—"

An enthusiastic voice from somewhere far off to the left said, "I'm game! I'm _great_ at plowing in and out of tight places."

There was silence for a second, and then: "You had to put it that way, didn't you?"

"Well now _I_ don't want to do it."

"I'm going to _suggest_ ," someone said in a voice that meant it was not a suggestion – Grif glanced over and recognized Armand, lording it over the group like he wasn't just as dirt poor as the rest of them (he was fun to wind up, but on very long days sometimes Grif forgot why they were friends), "that we do not turn this into a firefight. He's going to be a serious liability in any case, and I'd rather not end a mission to save Grif's ass with him shot in the head."

Grif…would like that too, though he wasn't entirely certain why it was an option. You only had to try to sneak into a naval base once to learn that it was a bad idea.

That shithead who followed his mother around when he was looking for his next hit clearly didn't agree, asking Armand in a gruff Southern tone at odds with his usual whine, "Why not?"

Crackheads don't get no respect; Grif huffed out a noiseless laugh when the entire group ignored him. Over at the kitchen sink Kyle's mom added, "I'm with Wash on this one. I think it's a good idea to stay away from plans that end in a pitched battle when our forces are outnumbered six to one."

Armand blew out a breath. "That bad?"

She nodded with military efficiency and someone suggested, "Okay, so we sneak in."

Grif, realizing that Kai was about to be goaded into another idiotic dare, shook himself out of his lethargy in order to look up at his sister, catching her eye. "Don't you dare."

Kaikaina looked behind her and at his severe, "I mean it, Kai," seemed to finally recognize that he was talking to her. She gave him a thumbs up she clearly didn't mean (some guy in maroon armor thwacked her on the arm with a triumphant, "Ha!"), and turned again into her circle of friends, immediately defying him without her usual wheedling.

Grif tried to get up (he knew perfectly well that the only way to stop her before she made a stupid decision was to physically pull her away and distract her until, like a crow drawn to the first shiny thing it saw, she moved on to the next stupid decision presented to her), but his backpack was still caught on the chair. He reached under the strap on his left shoulder, trying to loosen it, but the damn thing wouldn't loosen.

Focused on the strap buckle and unable, for some reason, to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, he lost the next bit of conversation. He gave up for a second, gasping a little at the wasted effort, and caught the end of "…great idea. Red and blue armor will blend _right_ in to the white marble. And of course every single person here has the self-control to keep their mouths shut while infiltrating heavily guarded areas. That's definitely been our MO up to now."

Grif tried the other strap next, but no go. This was unbelievable. What the hell was it caught on?

"I think our best shot—" Mrs. Needlebaur began.

"I have heavily guarded ammo," volunteered a new voice. Grif, more than a little frustrated now, didn't bother placing the familiar voice (though he could sense his homeroom teacher gearing up to give the kid detention for speaking out of turn), just kept quietly fumbling at the straps, still trying to keep anyone from noticing him having trouble with his backpack. Like he didn't have enough to live down already.

"Yes you do," the vid program playing on Mrs. Needlebaru's shoulder answered, speaking like a guy congratulating his dog for being such a good boy. "For which we are all truly thankful."

Grif's hands found the buckle of one of his backpack straps and with a triumphant little click nearly had his left arm free, but then someone in pink body armor – no, not someone, one of those asshole marines – swooped down on him like a bat out of a Valley High mall.

"Whoops!" the soldier said brightly, buckling the clasp back into place with another audible click. "Better slide that latch into the right hole."

For a second Grif almost hit him. His arm was just free enough for a decent swing at him, and Tony Dierden had it coming if he thought he could keep Grif from cockblocking whatever plan the glee club had set up for humiliating his sister, _again,_ but then Tony completely stymied him by patting him on the hand and saying, with absolute sincerity, "You're going to be just fine."

He caught Kai – all of them, really – glancing at him, before she turned back to the group. "So we get disguises."

There was a gasp from Tony, who immediately exclaimed in an excited undertone, "Double-O-Donut rides again," which was drowned out by some idiot trying to claim the pirate costume.

"There is no—" a quick release of irritated breath "—It's not the kind of disguise, Caboose."

"But it _is_ almost that fucking stupid. What do you think this is? Indiana Jones and the Temple of Conveniently Placed Guards Exactly Our Size? Yeah, great idea. Not to mention we'd only need ten of them."

"Eleven," a voice interjected, tone helpful (over a disappointed, "That is not fair. Why does the Red Sergeant always get to be the pirate?"). "You forgot Lopez."

Deliverance's voice went, "Superiority, son! You have to earn the privilege," and the other, after a short pause, answered, "…right. That was totally…Lopez…I had forgotten to count. Thanks, Doc."

" _I think our best shot_ ," Mrs. Needlebaur tried again, in that on-edge tone she used when she was up to _here_ with the volume level of homeroom, "is to pick out a small, _stealthy_ group to go."

" _Or,_ " Deliverance immediately countered, "we could simply murder Grif, dump his body out the back as we fly away, and scare the pants off of every mercenary down there!"

There was a pause, then: "Right. So who do you think should—"

"They'll think it's raining dead men!"

That woke up Grif enough to catch the gray-armored marine looking up at the ceiling with his hands wrapped around the back of his neck, body language suggesting that someone could go ahead and kill him now. One of his underlings leaned over to him to mock-announce, "And in today's forecast: cloudy, with a chance of corpses."

"I gotta admit, that would scare the shit out of _me_."

"All in favor," the red sergeant said, his hand already up.

Before the vote could go down, the vice-captain of the cheer squad clamped her hand down on the junction between the football captain's shoulder and his neck, knocking his throwing arm back down. Over her muted but deadly serious, "Don't _test_ me," another of his sister's teammates looked over at Grif and asked, "So you and Kai coming over tonight, or what?"

At the moment Grif couldn't remember if he had a shift scheduled then, but it didn't matter; he felt like crap. Bonus if he could make Kai feel sorry enough for him to stay home and spend the evening burning chicken noodle soup on the stove instead of partying. He shook his head at the cheerleader, who shrugged and turned back to her boyfriend.

Half-planning how he'd guilt her into it, Grif let himself relax, zoning out the argument. As long as he wasn't trying to figure out what each voice was saying, the back-and-forth was almost hypnotic. He absently watched Bryden making an ass of himself in front of Gracie Lee, pretended he couldn't see one of mom's creepier johns watching him with a look that should've made him nervous but didn't, and the voices continued to snipe overhead but he just…couldn't…quite…

He abruptly came to at the feel of Mom unbuckling him from the car.

If he kept his eyes closed she might give up and let him sleep. He was comfortable where he was; he'd go into the house later. He started to legitimately nod off again, lulled by the brisk gentleness of her movements, but then she started trying to force him into a dress shirt.

"Mom," Grif protested, opening his eyes.

Mom ignored him, tugging a vest around his chest while the shop attendant on her right snapped his sleeves into place. Grif knew he should humor her – Mom had been excited all morning, insisting they spend the unexpected windfall on dress clothes for him and Kai – but it was just too…pointless. Seriously, when did she think he was going to have a reason to wear an orange, three-piece-suit? He looked like a waiter at a construction site. He'd never live it downif his friends caught him in this getup.

She spoke as she tightened the collar around his throat. "You know, statistically speaking – or, really, _anecdotally_ speaking, I don't actually have the analytics on it – the less we plan the better we follow them."

"Improvisation is nota legitimate strategy, and we are _not_ prepared for an actual battle against an actual army."

Still, it _was_ kind of nice that Mom had decided to buy them something new; especially for Kai, who had refused to take off the dress even to let Mom pay for it. They'd let her wear it out of the store, and whatever other feelings he had on the subject, Grif couldn't help but grin and make a face at the six-year-old as she watched him with her eyes shining, thrilled that he got a turn too.

"Just send Caboose out ahead of time with his heavily guarded ammo. The only diversion in the world guaranteed to wipe out at least three quarters of the enemy's forces before the actual plan starts."

"I am not hinging our entire not _-_ plan on a sentient weapon that answers to the name of _Freckles_."

"Personally, I'm not even comfortable taking it off party mode."

Grif only realized he was leaning into Mom's cool hand when she drew it back, actually shaking it out once before saying, mostly to herself, "Holy crap that's actually starting to hurt my hand." She stood, speaking in a louder voice. "Who's got his helmet?"

"I wasn't _suggesting_ we take it off party mode. I think we can count on him to maim them all horribly somehow anyways."

"Suggests the guy team-killed at least three different times."

This started off an explosion of insults, but Grif – used to the refrain of verbal abuse that made up the background noise of his life – focused instead on the shop attendant as he moved into the space Mom had just vacated. Grif frowned and the salesman, catching it, gave him a thumbs-up. Deciding he didn't want to deal with him, Grif shut his eyes and pretended to go back to sleep.

His eyes flew open as Harley, mom's latest "customer," started to fumble with his belt. There were a lot of lines that had been crossed during the past sixteen years but this was not one of them, and it was not _going_ to be one of them. Grif tried to evade the pervert but son of bitch he had forgotten that he was still stuck in the chair.

He suddenly caught sight of Pal, arms crossed as he watched Grif struggle silently (trying not to wake Kai in the other room; Grif did not need his little sister walking in on this, retargeting the bull's-eye on her own back). Pal grinned at him, smile nasty. "Tell your mom I've got a message for her."

Dave walked right through the scumbag (who melted away without protest), holding an orange motorcycle helmet in his hands. "What the hell are you doing?"

"His armor doesn't match," Harley pointed out, giving it a rest; Grif's heart pounded in his ears. "We got the rest of it on, and it'll take just a jiffy to switch out his leg armor too."

The ongoing argument over on the right interrupted itself when Grif's homeroom teacher called out, exasperation in every word, "Donut, you are _not_ undressing a kid with serious trust issues and a history of abuse."

Harley – no, she'd said Donut but…wait, neither of those were right, Donut was a stupid nickname for Princess Peach – Princess Peach actually settled back on his heels at that, hands pulling back towards his chest in a way that telegraphed girly harmlessness. "Well, when you put it that way…" He paused, however, halfway to his feet to up and down Grif one more time with a bothered air, before trying, "What if I ask for his consent first?"

"I said _no_."

"Well, don't think I didn't try my best," the princess told Grif, shaking his head and sighing. "I'm sorry you look kind of stupid," he added apologetically, settling the straps of Grif's backpack (no, that's right, they were just safety restraints; cooler heads, Grif, keep it together) into place to buckle him back in. He patted Grif on the knee – oblivious to a failed attempt to dodge the friendly tap – and squeezed into the circle, forcing the motorcyclist who had been pulled back into the argument to make room.

Grif had only a second to enjoy his personal bubble. "If I take one of the back molars," Pal said, suddenly close enough to be gripping Grif's lower jaw in one meaty hand as he inspected his teeth, "no one will even notice. Don't tell me I'm not thoughtful, Dex."

Grif wrenched himself out of Pal's grip. "You put your hand near my mouth one more time and I bite off your fingers."

The sudden, sharp move had caught his science teacher's attention; Mr. Greene was staring at him. "Eesh." He glanced over his shoulder at the rest of his class. "Well no one do that, okay?"

Grif turned his attention back to the payday collector, mouth open to tell him that he would have his money for him next week and fuck you too, Pal, but he had disappeared. Sensing movement in his peripheral vision, Grif glanced left. The autistic boy from down the block was carefully sidling in his direction, a hand slowly coming up and towards him with the air of a kid who wanted to poke the rattlesnake to find out if it was actually poison.

Before Grif could tell Petey to bark up someone else's tree, one of the arguing cheerleaders caught sight of him. "Caboose, I swear on whatever unholy deity that hatched you, if you lose one of your fingers I'm not packing it on ice for you."

There was a disappointed "tsk" noise from Petey, which everyone but a lone, " _I'd_ be happy to do that for you, but I forgot to bring the cooler. Next trip, I promise," ignored.

"So we're all agreed then…"

They were not, apparently. Grif lost the gist of the argument as cooler-guy turned into a Batman villain and volunteered to murder him – again – followed by someone saying, "You need a diversion, we can _do_ diversion – one of our few specialties," over a loud, "Let's just nail 'em, in and out!" which was immediately answered with, "Don't even say it. And you: stop lobbing these softballs at Donut!"

Whatever. They had their problems, he had his. Grif tried to grab Kai as she walked by, needing to warn her that Pal was hanging around again, but he missed her hand and she moved out of reach, blithely unaware of the danger.

"Kai," he said. " _Kai_."

He was abruptly aware of someone holding his hand and he glanced over, confused. Heather gave him a smile, because of course it was CPS. They were creepy touchy-feely. He surreptitiously tried to remove his hand from her grasp, but she had it tight in her clammy palm and wouldn't let go.

" _Kai_ ," he hissed, secretly trying to get her attention. He could feel his heart start to pound again, right in the base of his throat. She needed to know that CPS was here, because these assholes were worse than Pal. Pal would leave you alone once he got what he wanted, but Child Protective Services would dig and meddle and keep on digging and meddling until you finally gave in and they took you away from the only person who had ever counted on you to be there. " _KAI."_

Kai ignored him.

Grif lost it.

It both did and didn't make sense in that way nightmares did: he told her to get her ass back home now, to stay with a friend tonight, to not talk to anyone but say hi to the Johns for me, they'll watch you for a couple days while I clean up the apartment and hide anything that would suggest they _don't_ live in a stable home environment; he shook Heather's hand loose only to realize he'd gotten it twisted in a wet t-shirt, but she was still sitting there looking at him with that smug concern he hated, like she'd finally figured out a way to prove that Mom was never coming home; he had to get up because he was sixteen and late for his shift, except that he was actually the UNSC's worst excuse for a solider (no he wasn't, _no he wasn't)_ because he was nine and he needed to tell Kai to lock their bedroom door behind him, cover her ears, and hum.

But to do that he needed to get this stupid backpack off and tell Pal to go screw himself and for Schwimmer to keep himself busy with his other hand instead of sniffing around his little sister and son of a bitch why was Kai _here?_ She shouldn't be _here_. She should be at school. The marines were going to kidnap her. No, they'd already kidnapped her – hadn't they told him they'd all already had sex with her?

The marines, too, were flipping out.

"—happened?! What is—"

"Don't look at me! I didn't _touch_ him, I—"

"—alm him down, _now._ We—"

"Wh— _how?_ "

The world was melting sideways, and Grif didn't know who anyone was.

"What makes you think this is my forte? I don't know! Just…pretend you're his sister."

"I'm not— _no,_ I'm not pretending to be Sister!"

"Your balls won't actually shrivel up if you let him think you're a girl!"

Someone was holding his head back, a damp towel over his eyes as they tried to force him to drink something and hell _no_. Some rabbit holes you go down only once. Grif kept his mouth shut so tightly that he tasted blood, bottom lip held closed with his teeth, while the voices ("Didn't you forfeit your manhood a couple of crying fits ago?" "Tucker, either start helping, or zip it." "Hey, I came up with the disguise idea!") talked over and at and into each other, a few words sticking out here, another sentence there, and the more they shouted the less they made sense.

"Where's your mother, Dexter? She should've—"

"And what a great idea it was. What do you think: should Caboose get to be the pirate this time, or does Sarge have the honor?"

"—like _shit_ , man, your sister's a hot piece of work, I'd like to—"

"For the record, my idea doesn't involve executing him and dropping him out the back hatch. I think that puts me in the top tier of contributors."

"Grif? I mean Dexter? Buddy? Listen to me—no, no, buddy, it's okay—open up, we need to cool you down," a voice very close to his face said, but it was still nearly drowned out by a drill sergeant shout of: "I have no idea why we're even considering any other plans!"

"Leave him alone, Doc! You're—"

"Thank you, Sarge. The defense rests."

"—freaking him out!"

"It's alright, I've—"

"—don't mind—"

"—swear, if O'Malley—"

"Everyone, SHUT YOUR FUCKING HOLES."

Grif wrenched forwards at the order, the towel dropping with an unceremonious plop into his lap. He had never heard his teacher swear before; none of them had. Every single one of his classmates stared at her, startled. She just wasn't the type. Prim, tidy, and prudely bitchy – a leftover from another era – and holy hell if _that_ hadn't gotten their attention.

Dr. Jekyll somehow had the audacity to open his mouth first. "What is that noise?"

And then all seven or ten or fifteen or however many of them there were standing in front of Grif simultaneously looked up at something above his head, and Grif – who knew that sound from his childhood – recognized that a window AC unit was about to give out.

Dave broke the silence with a vaguely horrified, "It's not working anymore," and that opened the floodgates.

"Shit, s _hit, fucking_ _SHIT._ Okay, we've got to move now."

"Son of a bitch, _the healing unit's not working anymore_."

"We heard you the first time!"

"Lopez, get this bird back in the air. We're doing this fast and dirty."

"Don't worry, Wash: we always perform our best fast and dirty!"

Incomprehensible Spanish and: "Would you _stop. Serving it. Up. On a silver. Platter_."

"It's a well-known idiom!"

"So is the phrase 'on the ball' but you don't hear me using it around Donut!"

"Focus, guys!"

"Okay, so we're going in hard, and we're going in now—"

"You're doing it on purpose now, aren't you?"

"—and we need him _not_ to fight us."

There was still chaos as soldiers and cheerleaders and social workers rushed around, buckling themselves in as they tossed weapons to each other and checked armor, the entire building shuddering, going up like an elevator, but there was also a sigh, short and loud, but somehow calm. A moment later Mr. King in a teal suit was crouching down in front of Grif, like he was about to explain something that Grif would find hard to hear.

"…Church?" Mr. Roger's prompted.

Grif swallowed. "Did something happen to my sister?"

"No," Mr. King's holo-assistant promised him. It glanced up at Kai's homeroom teacher, who nodded just slightly, then looked back at Grif. "Yes, Wash," it said as Mr. King put on her helmet. "I know what you're asking."

Grif hadn't realized someone was sitting next to him until they were forcing a helmet on his own head. They got it on him despite his best efforts, Mr. King taking a couple extra seconds to reach forward and adjust the helmet so that the HUD – which seemed like safety feature overkill – lined up with his eyes. And then for some reason, right as she rocked back on her heels, Grif recognized the dick hologram.

Remembered what it could do.

"Sorry," it said as the teenager tried desperately to wriggle out of his backpack one last time, Pal's buddies pinioning his arms to his sides to keep him from breaking free. "This is going to feel really weird."

* * *

They plowed right in.

This went about as well as their usual plans did. Which is to say: better than it should have. Lopez hit the large, open archway that served as the front gate of the temple at 500 miles an hour, skidded through the courtyard with half the wall trailing in their wake, and creamed a squad of guys unfortunate enough to have decided to take their smoke break leaning up against the outer wall of the inner sanctum. The thick brick didn't so much buckle as explode into what had probably once been the holiest of holies a couple millennia ago, and the Pelican came to a sudden, lurching stop, stuck halfway in the wall and wearing the top of the archway like a hat.

"Why in the _hell_ do we let you people make up the plans?" Wash demanded as he unbuckled, stood, and picked up his rifle in one swift, fluid movement. He had to stand with his legs spread wide, the ship's nose in the air, her floor at a steep incline.

Carolina was already at the front of the Pelican – windshield shattered but, for the moment, holding – the others still a good few seconds behind. Tucker picked up his own weapon as he clambered to his feet. "We'll stop following them as soon as you stop letting us."

Simmons suddenly made a grab at Grif, catching him under the arm as the half-orange, half-tan soldier wavered, nearly falling back before managing to plant a foot, steadying himself.

"Holy shit it's hot in here," Church said as the maroon solider cautiously released him.

The first few bullets started hitting the back of the ship.

"Here we go," Carolina remarked absently. She got up on the control panel, leaning her shoulder into the shattered glass, testing it in a few places before picking a spot to hit with the broadside of her back.

At the sound of the bullets, Church was hard pressed not to jump ship from Grif to his teal-armored partner. There was an unspoken and – before now – never broken rule that Church didn't abandon Carolina during active combat situations, under any circumstances. Of course, that rule hadn't taken into account the Reds and Blues natural proclivity for finding and/or being the exception to every rule on the known books.

"It was only a matter of time," Carolina said to Church, catching him looking at her, tone borderline consoling.

Church, still enormously displeased with the necessity of abandoning his freelancer, only grunted. Rather than answer the useless noise, Carolina turned to the others. "Give me a hand."

Sarge ordered Donut onto the control panel and Wash pushed Doc up as well, ignoring the sharp "Don't touch me, you fool!" and immediate apology that followed, joining him a second later. Lopez stayed where he was, watching with an unimpressed air. Simmons stayed mostly where he was, following uncomfortably close behind Church as the AI walked Grif's body up the incline of the ship, hands up and ready to catch him.

" _Tucker_ ," Carolina snapped, catching sight of the aquamarine soldier watching them try and break the glass with his arms folded.

He shrugged. "No room. And yell at Sarge, if you're going to yell at me."

Simmons glared at him, but he could've been saved the pissy expression, considering that no one could see it. Tucker certainly missed it, frowning at Church/Grif. "Hey. Earth to Church. You with us?" He paused a second, then tried: "What are you thinking?"

The AI snapped out of whatever reverie he'd been stuck in. "I'm thinking about murdering you, if that makes you feel any better."

"You know, it actually doesn't."

"On three," Carolina said as bullets continued to pepper the ship, hitting the back of the Pelican in a ratatatat rhythm that meant the mercs had machine guns. Oh joy. "One, two—"

"Knock, knock, who's there?" Caboose asked, pressing the backdoor release, because every single one of them had collectively forgotten to keep him under supervision.

"Caboose, NO—!"

But it was too late. With a squealing screech of protesting metal grinding together then apart, the backdoor started to open, shifting the entire Pelican further on its side as bullets began to ricochet inside the sudden death-trap.

"You fucking moron!" Tucker shouted, dashing forward to grab him, pulling the blue soldier back from the frontlines. In front of them Simmons was trying to push Church forward ("Stop—fucking stop _helping,_ you're going to make me trip."), and Tucker grabbed an arm as they sailed past, so that both he and Simmons were dragging the orange soldier forward as Church continued to bitch.

"Orange," Caboose said as they deposited Church in a chair, their hands now free to push the blue soldier forward to add his massive strength to the task, Carolina counting a constant refrain of "one, two, _three_ " to get them all hitting the window at the same time.

"Wh—yes, idiot, he's the orange guy."

"Orange you glad I didn't say banana?" the blue soldier finished.

"I'm killing whoever taught him that joke," Church decided from the co-pilot's chair, the only Red or Blue not pounding away at the glass.

The windshield resisted. It bulged outward on every " _three!"_ but refused to give, crackling but not breaking.A bullet dinged off Lopez's head and the robot, with something that was definitely a sigh, stood. He pushed aside Doc and Donut like he was parting the red sea, pulled an arm back, and then punched a hole straight through the glass.

"What the—" Wash started, but Carolina spotted something twinkling on every single one of the robot's knuckles and demanded, "Are those…what did you do to upgrade him now?"

"A man needs his bling," Sarge explained. "And so do his pet projects. And their pet project's pet projects."

Tucker backed off as glass flew, Lopez still pounding away at the window. Doc started peeling safety glass aside as the hole grew large enough to push outwards. "He has retractable brass knuckles inset with _diamonds?_ You spend your paychecks on the stupidest things."

"Paycheck? Why spend a paycheck when you've got lifesavings to dip into!"

"Don't complain about something that's about to save your life," Simmons snapped defensively.

Tucker flinched as a bullet whistled by his ear. The Pelican's rear was angled down enough that any bullets that made it this far had to have ricocheted off a part of the ship closer to the door, but they would still hurt like a son of a bitch and the Charon troops wouldn't stay shy for long. "Yeah, get back to me when this is over and we're not all _fucking dead_."

Before they could really get into it, Carolina shout-ordered, "We're out! MOVE, people."

They moved, pushing aside more glass as they went, some of which fell into the Pelican, sliding down the floor, tinkling and scraping as it went. There was no order to the mass exodus, though Carolina and Wash, as soon as they exited, stayed crouched on either side of the window, flanking the broad window to make sure everyone got out and to lend a hand to those who needed it. Doc almost slid down into the inner sanctum, but caught himself, and it took both freelancers and at least three sim soldiers – not all of them red – to pull Grif out, despite the fact that Church was doing his best to help.

Sarge was the last to leave, handing up the bottom-half of Grif's armor to Wash before pulling himself out, who took it before he registered what it was. "Why are you bringing his pants?"

"Decoy," Sarge replied, in his _duh, dirtbag_ tone.

Wash said, to absolutely no one as he gave them back, "I am so over dealing with you today."

Church was standing with his arms folded, surveying the downed Pelican as Wash rejoined the group. "Well this was a colossally shitty idea. How the fuck are we getting out of here?"

Like the overly defensive type-A suckup he was, Simmons looked pointedly at Tucker and stepped in it. "I told you this was a bad idea."

The teal soldier folded his arms to match Church. "Are you seriously going there? I'm not the idiot who started freaking out."

"The healing unit sounded like it was going to explode! Anyways, I wasn't the only one who…you were all—"

"Let's just get _in_ first, shall we?" Carolina prompted, not actually asking. Or suggesting, even.

"I didn't ' _freak out_ ,'" Simmons muttered belligerently, actually air-quoting the words.

For the moment they were covered by the Pelican (and any mercenary who would've been close enough to start taking potshots at them was either dead or mortally wounded by the Pelican's dramatic entrance), but that wouldn't last. They picked their way more quickly than carefully through the rubble, trying to get down into the opening in the wall of the inner sanctum, when Church suddenly staggered.

"Whoa," Simmons said, hand back under his forearm. "You alright?"

"Wow, that was…" Church shook his head. "Yeah, I'm good."

The maroon soldier didn't let go, hand unconsciously squeezing harder into Grif's armpit. " _Grif_ alright?"

" _Yes_ ," the AI answered, annoyed that Simmons thought his first answer hadn't covered both of them. "Actually, I think he's better."

"Better?"

"I was having a really interesting time trying to see past what Grif's whacked out delirium was telling me he was looking at, and all of a sudden everything's clear again. So yes: _better_."

Doc, looking at where Church was standing, gasped. ""Hey, did you notice you just passed the wall?"

"I'm not an infant," the AI sneered at him. The medic folded in on himself a little. "Of course I did."

Simmons was staring at him, excited interest in every line of his body. "You mean this place has a latent healing effect? Do you know what we could do if—"

"Not now, Simmons. Let's just—"

Church swore and, when Washington turned to him, explained the interruption. "There he is."

They were higher up now, at the peak of the downed pile of bricks that used to be the East wall of the inner courtyard, which afforded them a decent vantage point. Tucker peered through the rubble to see what the problem was, and the sight of Felix signaling the mercenaries already flanking either side of the courtyard and fast approaching the downed Pelican earned a, "Son of a bitch."

"That's the nice way to put it," Donut said, tone legitimately complimentary. A second later he had turned his faceplate back to Felix, hands on his hips and a frown in his voice, like he was commenting on the unpleasant weather. "I _hate_ that guy."

"Maybe he's just misunderstood," Doc suggested.

Church ignored him. "No sign of Locus."

"That's not saying much."

"Well, no one's specifically targeted Wash yet. That seems like a good sign."

"Either way it's trouble," Carolina said, "Let's keep—"

Distracted by the thought of Felix storming the castle and thus busy watching him maneuver his troops into position, no one expected the lone Charon soldier that had braved the climb up the center of the Pelican and popped up out of the window. That he had a clear shot on Grif was just bad luck. Church was still standing at the peak of the hole into the inner sanctum, so the merc's eyes found the brightest, biggest target in front of him, and pulled the trigger.

Sarge, of all people, pushed Grif down while Simmons was still absorbing this new, terrifying information, but it was Caboose – stepping right in front of all three of them because he may have been an idiot but he had the homing instincts of Lassie – who took the machine gun spray from his chest to his face.

The merc lasted only seconds longer, hit by at least four weapons, but it didn't matter: Church tore himself from Grif's armor with a livid, anguished "CABOOSE!" He tried to force himself into the blue soldier's armor, but the programming rejected him and he ended up in Wash, then Carolina, then Tucker, then Simmons, then Wash again, on and on, flashing in and out of each teammate as he tried, again and again, to force himself into the dead armor.

Grif was gasping hard, breaths wheezy from the scream Church had just wrung from him. His pulse beat rapidly in his wrist where Simmons (numb – disbelieving – because this never happened to them) crouched by his side, holding a couple of fingers on his radial artery. "Oh," the orange soldier said, still gasping. He looked up at the maroon soldier, with a flickering glance at Sarge that neither of them caught. "Oh they—" he choke-coughed, still clearly trying to catch his breath, then said more to himself than anyone else, "—they actually are friends."

And right then, as the world was going unalterably, unbearably wrong, Caboose said, "Oh hello! Why are you all over there?"

Every single one of them reeled, whipping their heads to look up at the top of the wall where the voice had come from; Church, for a split nanosecond, froze. Whipped down to look at the body: gone. Whipped back up again.

Waving at them as he stood perfectly straight in dark blue armor and silhouetted against the horizon, Caboose made a perfect target. Someone shot him in the head, and his body went tumbling back over the wall.

Before they could decide whether this deserved another wailing farewell, Caboose's voice cropped up from even farther away. It took them a second to find him, this time in the inner courtyard of the Healing Temple.

"AND NOW I AM OVER HERE!" he shouted, sounding both surprised and delighted. "IS THIS WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE O'MALLEY?"

"NO!" O'Malley yelled back, and Church went ahead and said it for all of them.

"What the hell is going on?"

* * *

 _AN: First off, my deepest apologies for the delay. Also, while posting an unfinished work seriously slows down the update pace (SERIOUSLY slows the update pace), the advantage is that things people say in their comments affect my storytelling decisions. I'd always planned to have them fight the Charon troops, but everyone can thank MoonCrystal for inspiring me to make Felix a part of the battle. Like two years ago now, but still: thanks!_

 _As to the disappearing act, I feel I owe you guys an explanation, though the excuse is still mixed in with my nature as a master procrastinator. Last year I moved cross-country to start a new job, a salaried position that involves quite a bit of (non-fiction) writing. I almost turned it down because I was afraid I would let it interfere with my dreams of becoming a (fiction) author, but I am my father's daughter: I couldn't reject the practical option, especially when it came with insurance and benefits. Since then it's been really easy to neglect my personal projects with the excuse that I'm mentally done after work. However, I'm bound and determined that it won't actually defeat me; getting back into this story is a good exercise in refocusing my life after regular working hours. Thanks for sticking with me._

 _In somewhat related news, we are closing in on the end of this story. I already have 7,000 unposted words written, which is still the best guarantee I have that I will complete this story. Absolutely no promises for when I will update – just a promise that I will. There are way too many fun lines left that I haven't gotten to share yet._


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